Protests in Libya Take a Turn for the Worse

The death toll in Libya has risen to 104 people as Libyan security forces moved against protestors in Benghazi, the second largest city in the country. On Saturday the first protest to seriously challenge Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's rule in forty years erupted in Benghazi. The past four days Libya has seen it's government shaken by protests as security forces fired on a funeral procession. The government is using every means necessary to squelch the protests, including cutting the country off from the internet. Protesters say it is too late for dialogue with the government, that too much blood had been spilt to begin talks for peace. The article implied that the harder the government cracks down the greater the pushback from the protesters to make their claims heard. Libya is just the fourth in a successive line of countries that have fallen to protesters as successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had shown lay people it was possible to remove a long time dictator. Libya, Algeria and Yemen are all cracking down with military force on the uprisings in their respective countries, trying to prevent them before they gather too much momentum. Western criticism is gathering as news reaches the western world of the atrocities that the middle eastern governments are using excessive military force.

by Margaret Nunne