During a visit to Libya in July, the European Union’s special representative for the southern Mediterranean, Bernadino Leon, stressed that a genuine democracy takes time. In the past he has mentioned that his own country, Spain, suffered under 40 years of dictatorship and that it took seven years to establish a more stable democracy there.  He […]

Imad Muhammad Al-Buseifi, 20, was shot dead last February by military guards at a checkpoint in Gharyan (west of Tripoli), when he failed to obey the order to stop. “He did not stop,” said Fatima, Imad’s fiancée “because he was transporting a group of illegal immigrants -as he had been doing for the last two […]

Despite the heap of money resting in his shop’s safe, gold trader Saleh Zaidani could not buy the piece of raw gold offered to him by a Sudanese man because he could not estimate the price.   The seller could see Zaidani’s confusion. “I brought this from Jebel Uweinat,” the seller said, explaining that he […]

The events in Egypt and the success of the Rebel Movement in achieving its goals, by gathering a huge masses of people to protest against the government, have inspired the Libyan youth to try their hands at a similar movement called the ‘Rejection Movement.’ Despite its aims and demands being different from the Egyptian situation […]

Clan leaders of the villages surrounding Tobruk, in far eastern Libya, are leading a movement aimed at seceding their villages from Tobruk in order to fall within the municipality of Musaid, a boundary city which is, compared to Tobruk, small and with few resources. Clan leaders of the villages surrounding Tobruk, in far eastern Libya, […]

“To offer your feelings to your loved ones is beautiful, but what is more beautiful is to offer them part of your body,” said 27-year-old Belqassem Mohammed, as he was preparing to be released from hospital after undergoing an operation in which he donated his kidney to his mother. “To offer your feelings to your […]

In part two, residents from Tripoli to Benghazi tell fellow Libyan, Soad Salem about their wildest dreams for transforming their communities, which were long neglected under Gaddafi then damaged by the no-fly-zone in 2011. Their visions are modest yet concrete and address infrastructural, social and political issues, ranging from plans to build more libraries and youth […]

The results of the General National Congress (GNC) elections in Libya were obviously unexpected compared to those in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt where Islamists came to power. In Libya, civil movements, represented by National Forces Alliance, as a unified political entity won the majority of the GNC seats. Represented in both present and former governments […]

In Bedouin tents set up for the occasion at Solh Square in Mathani Village in Matrouh—209 kilometers west of Alexandria— notables of the Egyptian Jamiyat Tribe (Beit Abu Subaiha) lined up to welcome their guests from the Obeidat tribe from eastern Libya, to end a feud that lasted 37 years. In Bedouin tents set up […]

Koert Debeuf lives in Cairo, where he represents Alliance for Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the parliament of the European Union. He is the former advisor of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, an author and founder of the think tank Prometheus. Reporting from post-revolutionary Egypt, his blog examines events in the Arab world.  […]