The Chairman of the Libyan Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Youssef Al-Agouri called for “holding accountable those involved in the massacre of mass hangings in which the Gaddafi regime executed Libyan students in April 1977.”
On the 46th anniversary of the hangings, Al-Agouri said, “Those terrible events will always be remembered by the Libyan people, as a witness to the crimes of the former regime.”
Several students were executed for anti-Gaddafi activities. The universities were raided by the security services and members of the revolutionary committees, and the former regime launched a campaign of arrests targeting many students.
Students were hanged on gallows erected on university campuses for this purpose.
“The former regime launched a massive and unprecedented campaign of repression against students of the Universities of Benghazi and Tripoli and Libyan citizens abroad, claiming hostility to the revolution at that time,” Al-Agouri said in a statement published by the Parliament.
In a speech delivered on 7 April 1976, the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi threatened the students, saying: “Those who were defaming the university, and writing on its walls phrases that disgrace the university, are from the enemies of the revolution and must be liquidated. I started the battle and will not back down until their blood is shed, and runs in the streets with the revolution’s enemies.”
According to the statement, the execution campaign aimed at silencing the voices of university students, who were demanding their legitimate student rights. “The campaign has targeted all national voices opposing the criminal practices of the former regime against the Libyan people.”
“Criminal groups, on instructions from the regime, used the most heinous methods of killing, torture, and humiliation, erected gallows in university auditoriums, and organized courts outside the law,” the Libyan lawmaker noted.
Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled Gaddafi in 2011. The county has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.
The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December 2021, and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba, who is leading the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s eastern-based Parliament appointed a rival Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.