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Forces loyal to Libya's Haftar 'burn 6,000 books'
[Al Jazeera] Forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar
... served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all...
have been accused of burning more than 6,000 books, including works on religion, politics, poetry and philosophy.

According to a video posted on Facebook by Al Manara, a Libyan media platform, more than 6,000 books - including reported biographies of the Prophet Muhammad - were destroyed by a police force in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday.

The video showed a police officer claiming that the seized literature was promoting the ideas of "ISIS" (the Arabic term for Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
of Iraq and Levant or ISIS), as he sat behind a desk covered with books, including classical Islamic works.

The officer said the books "promoted violence" and the "ideas of the Moslem Brüderbund", which has been banned by UAE and Egypt.

In January, more than 100 Libyan writers and intellectuals, including renowned Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, condemned a seizure of books deemed "erotic" or anti-Islamic by authorities in eastern Libya.

Books by Egyptian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz and Arabic translations of books by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche were allegedly among dozens seized from a truck heading from Tobruk to Benghazi.

A video of the book seizure was posted online where security officials denounced the "cultural invasion," claiming the works promoted sorcery, as well as erotic materials.

In an open letter, more than 100 novelists denounced the confiscation, calling it "intellectual terrorism".


Posted by: Fred 2017-06-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=490658