By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 8 May 2014:
Speaking very briefly today at a UN organized women’s workshop on empowering Libyan women in the . . .[restrict]political process, including the constitutional drafting process, Ali Tarhuni head of the Constitutional Drafting Committee – assured the overwhelmingly female audience that they will be part of the process.
Tarhuni, assured the audience which included some of the leading female activists and NGOs, saying “you are half of this society and you fought hard to be within it”.
Trying to allay fears of the constitutional drafting committee becoming dominated by a certain political tendency Tarhuni said that “it is an independent body and its only compass is Libya – to represent Libyan women and men”.
Going out of his way to send a nation-wide message that the constitutional drafting process will not fall into the hands of the Islamists, who have managed to dominate the GNC despite not gaining the largest number of votes, Tarhuni stressed that “The constitution will be a document that will represent Libya, Libya and Libya”.
However, the former Minister of Finance and Oil under the first post Qaddafi government headed by Mahmoud Jibril, warned that “Libyans will be the only guarantor and protector of this committee and of the constitution”. [/restrict]
