Tripoli: The slaying of a Libyan women’s rights activist in her home just hours after she voted in a general election drew Western and UN condemnation on Thursday. Masked men broke into the home of Salwa Bugaighis in restive second city Benghazi, an Islamist bastion, just hours after polls closed on Wednesday evening. “Mrs Bugaighis was stabbed in several parts of her body but the cause of death was a bullet wound to the head,” said a spokesman for the Benghazi Medical Centre.
US ambassador Deborah Jones called the killing “heartbreaking” on her Twitter account and denounced “a cowardly, despicable, shameful act against a courageous woman and true Libyan patriot”. British ambassador Michael Aron tweeted that he was “Devastated about horrific murder of Salwa Bugaighis. Leadinglight of # 17FebRevolution & human rights champion. Sad day for # Libya.” Bugaighis, a lawyer and a feminist, played an active part in the NAT0-backed uprising of 2011, which ended the four-decade dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. A former member of the National Transitional Council, the rebellion’s political wing, she was vice president of a preparatory committee for national dialogue in Libya.
A deadly attack on troops and low turnout marred a parliamentary election Libyan authorities hope will end the political turmoil rife since the ouster of Gaddafi. Seven soldiers deployed to provide polling day security in second city Benghazi were killed, and 53 injured, in what security officials said was an attack on their convoy by Islamist militia. By the time polls closed at 1800 GMT on Wednesday, just 630,000 of the 1.5 million registered voters had cast their ballot, a 47 per cent turnout, according to preliminary estimates by the electoral commission. The number of registered voters itself is a far cry from the more than 2.7 million who signed up two years ago for Libya’s first ever free election. Almost 3.5 million Libyans are eligible to vote. In the past few weeks, Libya has been rocked by a crisis that sees two rival cabinets jostling for power in a crippling showdown between Islamists and liberals, as violence raged in the east.
