The Libyan government daily Al-Zahf al-Akhdarhas been suspended for one week for suggesting that Colonel Moammar Gadaffi should no longer be referred to as the ”guide of the revolution” and should instead start behaving as a genuine head of state. This is the second time the newspaper has been suspended in four months.
Al-Zahf al-Akhdar was immediately suspended for one week on 27 January after the government daily had made these suggestions. The paper’s edition was also censored and removed from news stands.
Libyan authorities said Al-Zahf al-Akhdar was suspended for making ”serious mistakes” and for ”publishing articles contrary to the power of the masses,” which Libyan authorities see incorporated through the country’s leader, Colonel Gadaffi.
The French news agency AFP reported that the Libyan newspaper had recently carried an article calling on Gadaffi to ”fully exercise the power of a President and to put an end to the rhetoric surrounding his title as ‘guide of the revolution”’.
The article said the revolution had matured and it was ”now time to change the rules of the game and create a model state. … The warrior who has led this revolution must now build the state and truly become president,” the newspaper said.
All media in Libya are strictly controlled by the government and mostly only repeat the statements handed out to them by officials or the Libyan state-controlled news agency. Al-Zahf al-Akhdar until recently has played an equally passive role.
The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) on Friday called on Libyan authorities to ”allow a free and independent press to express itself”.
RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said the censorship of the newspaper was not acceptable.
Despite Gadaffi’s recent overtures to the United States — aimed at giving his regime a more favourable and open image — he has still not made the slightest gesture towards improving press freedom, which is non-existent in his country, said Ménard.
RSF also noted that Gadaffi was ”not content with silencing the Libyan press”, but also launched legal action against journalists who criticise him abroad. ”It is high time the colonel changed his approach towards the press,” Ménard said. – Misa