By Saber Ayyub.
Tripoli, 4 December 2015:
A group of Tripoli civil society organisations have set up a new body to lobby for . . .[restrict]the capital with whichever government is in power and with international bodies. “The Tripolitanian Board” also aims to encourage Tripoli residents to identify with the city and support it.
Large numbers of residents of the capital, although born there, identify instead with the town or locality from which their families originally came.
Formally established at an event at the Waddan Hotel in Tripoli last Wednesday by eight civil society organisations and some 200 representatives from prominent Tripoli families, the new body says it plans to promote the concept of citizenship and civic pride among the capital’s residents.
“We will work in the interests of the capital’s residents in all fields and by all means,” a member of the new organisation’s board, Abdulhafeed Al-Balazi, told the Libya Herald. “We will also work alongside the Central Tripoli Municipal Council, supporting it, but also we will criticise it,” he added.
Balazi said that one of the factors that had driven activists to set up the organisation was the way the city’s voice had been neglected by the UN-brokered Libya Dialogue negotiations. [/restrict]
