AFP
A newspaper editor and critic of Libya’s jihadists was gunned down yesterday in the lawless eastern city of Benghazi, an Islamist stronghold, medics said.
They said Meftah Bouzid, 50, editor of the weekly newspaper Burniq, was shot dead in the centre of the Mediterranean city.
A journalist and analyst, Bouzid often went on television to criticise Islamic extremists, resulting in threats to his life according to a friend.
Libyan authorities have struggled to stamp out lawlessness in a country awash with weapons from the 2011 revolution which toppled long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Ex-rebels, especially Islamists, have been blamed for deadly attacks on dozens of members of the security forces, judges and foreigners in Benghazi, the city where the revolution was born.
Bouzid and his paper came out openly in support of a military drive launched on May 16 by renegade general Khalifa Haftar to crush Islamists in Benghazi, in a so-called “dignity” campaign.
Hundreds of people attended Bouzid’s funeral, including a number of journalists. At the same time, journalists gathered in Benghazi and Tripoli to speak out against attacks on the media.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), condemned the killing “in the strongest terms”, urging the “authorities to conduct an investigation as quickly as possible” to identify those responsible for the murder.
Last week, the watchdog had voiced “deep concern about the fate of the country’s journalists, who are yet again the targets of violence.”
It urged “all civilian, military and political actors ...to immediately end all attacks on civilians, including all journalists”.
“News providers have a fundamental role to play in the new Libya, especially in the overall process of building a viable and democratic state for the long term,” the France-based group said.
The UN mission in Libya also urged a speedy investigation into the shooting, which it labelled a “terrorist act”.
And Mohamed al-Najem, head of the Libyan NGO the Centre for Press Freedom, accused “groups that want to muzzle courageous voices” of being behind the attack