Big News Network.com Thursday 26th June, 2014
CAIRO, Egypt - A prominent Libyan female activist, who was at the forefront of the 2011 uprising and took on then dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has been shot in the head and killed in her Benghazi house, officials said Thursday.
The slaying of Salwa Bugaighis has left the resident of her home city deeply shocked.
Bugaighis, a lawyer and a rights activist, was among the most outspoken voices against militiamen and Islamic extremists. She was an international face for Libyans' efforts to build democracy in their country.
There was no word on the identity of the gunmen but Muslim extremist militants have in the past been blamed for frequent assassinations of secular activists, judges, moderate clerics and policemen in Benghazi.
Masked men broke into her home in the restive second city Benghazi, an Islamist bastion, just hours after polls closed on Wednesday evening.
The state news agency LANA reported that Bugaighis was shot in the head Wednesday night hours after casting her ballot in Libya's parliament elections. Media reports said she was rushed to a hospital where she died of her wounds.
"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.
Hours before she was killed, Bugaighis had spoken by phone to Libyan TV channel.
"These are people who want to foil elections," she told Al Nabaa network as gunfire interrupted her call. "Benghazi has been always defiant, and always will be despite the pain and fear. It will succeed."
Her husband Issa, a member of the Benghazi municipal council, was also at home when the attack occurred. He has since disappeared and is said to have been abducted.
Bugaighis was among a small group of lawyers who protested outside the north courthouse in Benghazi in February 2011. But has been the most prominent female revolutionary
Bugaighis came from a prominent family in Libya. Her father was exiled for many years for opposing Gaddafi. His three daughters were brought up to be independent and all became professionals.
Bugaighis became a leading member of the Transitional National Council that ran the east of the country as a "liberated zone" while Gaddafi's forces kept control in Tripoli.
The slaying of the women's rights activist in a general election drew Western and UN condemnation on Thursday.
US ambassador Deborah Jones said the killing was "heartbreaking" even as she denounced it as "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. Leading light of Revolution and human rights champion. Sad day for Libya."
The UN Support Mission in Libya expressed regret that "once again, Benghazi witnesses a bloody attack, the (latest) of a series largely targeting civilians".
"UNSMIL calls on Libyan authorities to thoroughly investigate the assassination and bring the perpetrators to justice."
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