Response to article titled 'Libya Crisis'
I refer to the article titled "Libya Crisis" published on 18 March issue of The Daily Star. The writer claimed in the article that “In 1995 there was a student uprising in Libya. It was mercilessly silenced by Gaddafi's forces. About 1500 students lost their lives in the rebellion." I had been the Ambassador to Libya from 1995 to 2000 and nothing of the sort had happened in 1995 or thereafter. However, following an incident 8 students were reportedly hanged in the campus in presence of their family members in late seventy's or early eighty's. Secondly, universities were small and at no time there were more than 1500 students in any university in Libya fifteen years ago. This kind of free-wheeling dissemination of information without any expertise on a foreign country is no help to the readers or to the Paper. Moreover, quite a number of lines and paras in the latter part of the article were "body lifted" from my article on sanctions on Libya published in the DS of 13 March without quotation or acknowledgment. Though not an admirer of Col. Gaddafi I mention the above to put the record straight.
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