With bullets flying in their homeland and no media allowed in, Libyans living in Canada are taking to the web and the streets to spread the news of the country's increasingly violent antigovernment protests.
Libya is the latest North African country to be pitched into a civilian uprising, with protests erupting throughout major cities, including Benghazi,_Tripoli and Misrata. But unlike the so-far successful revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, those in Libya, a country ruled for over 40 years by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, have been shut out from media coverage while eyewitness reports suggest hundreds have been killed since last Tuesday.
Dozens of protesters descended on Toronto's Yonge and Dundas square on Sunday afternoon to draw attention to Libya's plight, a day after a similar demonstration on Parliament Hill.
One woman who has lived in Ottawa since emigrating from Libya in 1994 has launched a website to host any news, videos, or photographs that trickle out of Libya, which has all but cut off Internet and mobile-phone access and maintains a long-standing policy of denying entry to foreign journalists.
"Having my brother and sister go through what they've been going through right now, it's the least I can do from here in_Canada," said Asma'a Aghliw on why she and other Libyan expatriates have launched the site, freelibyatogether.com."There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's going to be much harder than what the Tunisians and Egyptians had to do."
Aghliw said that she and other Libyan expatriates across the country have been routinely calling family and friends to get the latest from Libya to piece together what's unfolding in their homeland.
On Sunday, news that Libyan security forces killed nearly 100 protesters in Benghazi, including 15 in a funeral procession, hit Aghliw's family hard. The 38-year-old elementary school teacher's in-laws live in Libya's second-largest city, which has witnessed the most intense protesting of Gaddafi's reign, as well as a fierce government response that reports say included anti-aircraft missiles, helicopter gunships and snipers.
"When he's calling (his family), he can hear the shooting and the screaming going on in the background," said Aghliw of her husband. In her hometown of Misrata, Aghliw's brother, an X-ray technician, told her that the hospitals were overflowing with bodies and blood.
"The hospitals are full of people who have been hit by weapons, who are dying. They don't even have places to put bodies," she said."It's mainly innocent youth. It's just regular citizens speaking out for their own rights."
Aghliw wants to share these stories and images to do her part to unseat Gaddafi's regime, which took power in a military coup in 1969 and has quelled any dissent through intimidation and violence.
"There is no freedom, no freedom of speech, there isn't even the feeling of safety you should get living in your home," said Aghliw."They want democracy. They want the freedom to be able to speak for their own rights. Until last Tuesday, they couldn't say anything about the political situation. If they did, then they or ... their family would be imprisoned, or tortured. Some people would be kidnapped and never heard from again."
The website links to a map of protests erupting across the country and hosts reports from Al-Jazeera and first-hand accounts of the uprising. Aghliw urged anyone with news from Libya to contact the website.
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