Gaddafi TV Should Be Stopped
In Rwanda, people were incited through radio broadcasts to go on a killing rampage - “kill all the cockroaches” they were told, referring to fellow Rwandans. In a mere 100 days nearly a million Rwandans had been hacked to death by machetes, their corpses littering the roadside. The world was stunned.Gaddafi has gone on State TV repeatedly and called protesters rats, dogs and traitors. In various speeches he’s said they are drunk and on pills, working with Al Qaeda, foreign agitators and American invaders coming to steal Libyan oil. He encourages followers to search every alley, invade every home and murder those who oppose him. He pledges himself to show them no mercy.
Saif Gaddafi uses state TV to threaten citizens to give up their demands that Gaddafi step down. He warned in a rambling and ominous speech that the streets would run with blood. “We are not Egypt, we are not Tunisia”. Within days the regime made good on their threats and images of unspeakable atrocities showed up without mercy on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Libya Al Hurra TV (the first ever live stream TV broadcast from Free Libya).
If it weren’t for the 8000+ citizens now believed by the transitional interim government to be dead, State TV might seem laughable. But it’s deadly serious.
Not long ago, a newsreader on State-run TV pulled out an AK-47 and swore undying loyalty to Colonel Gaddafi. He threatened: "I'm ready at any time, awake or asleep, to defend the country. This is our weapon.”
Previously, on the night the UN resolution passed, Gaddafi’s regime announced on State TV it would respect the ceasefire. That same night his troops continued to advance and kill civilians. Mohammed Nabbous, a citizen journalist who founded Libya Al Hurra, went out to file a report at a home where two young children were killed. If not for Mohammed, the world might not have known, that Gaddafi was lying. They would have had only Gaddafi’s statements from State TV, which the international media frequently quote.
Right now, there is the situation with a woman named Eman al-Obaidi. She burst into the Rixo Hotel in Tripoli shouting to the foreigner journalists her story of gang rape and beating at the hands of the Gaddafi Regime. She was promptly jumped, hooded and dragged away by security staff. Her location and condition are not known. Yet, Libya State TV reports that she has been released and is with her family. There is no evidence for this claim, in fact, her cousin said the family believes she is either already dead or will be. State TV goes on to call Eman a prostitute and liar, mentally ill, and drunk, which apart from the absurd inconsistencies is flat wrong. Eman is a law student. When international media pick it up the lies and repeat them, too often they neglect to point out that the regime has a long history of lies. This amplifies the lies and puts this woman along with the thousands of other disappeared people at grave risk to their lives.
Media can be a tool of democracy or a weapon of war. This is not about free speech. This is about State TV being used to intimidate citizens, obscure the truth about those who speak out or expose the lies and to incite others to murder fellow Libyans.
People claim to hate war, yet too often fail to take the simple steps to de-escalate violence before it erupts. Shutting down Gaddafi TV (Libya State TV) would deny the regime a potent weapon for inciting violence. It would do so without firing a shot. That we fail to take him off the air when we can is the real crime. It prolongs the crisis and increases the suffering of innocent civilians.
Resisting oppression, de-escalating violence and resolving conflict and are the tools we must employ if we are serious about peace. Peace activism is about being smart, creative, strategic and staying on the right side of justice.
Mohammed Nabbous filed his last report on March 19, the day after the UN resolution calling for a No Fly Zone was passed. He was shot dead by sniper after exposing the lies of the Gaddafi regime one last time.
The time to shut down State TV and take Gaddafi off the air is long over due. 8000+ people are dead. That’s 8000+ people too many.
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Image credit: BRQ Network
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