Benghazi Rising
The dispute that occurred in Benghazi was as unexpected as it was destructive, but the fundamental issue was the years of pain and repression that were at the heart of it.
Through the testimonies of the Benghazi residents, we trace the conflict back to its beginnings in a small protest over the imprisonment of a lawyer, we also learn the inspiring story of how the unarmed people of Libya overcame the titanium police state of Colonel Gaddafi.
The protesters who sang dedicated pictures of martyrs to other conflicts, not this one, instead, they dedicated the pictures to political prisoners who were imprisoned in Abu Salim since 1996.
Police killed around 1200 of them, and Benghazi will always remember the souls that perished on that tragic day. It was the lack of justice for these men that prompted the residents of Benghazi to begin protesting on the streets in the first place.
For the first time, fifteen years after the fact, they can publicly grieve the deaths of Gaddafi’s reign. Magnificent scenes that illustrate the longstanding burdens of Libyans for centuries.
