Libyan rebels launch their own TV station

LIBYAN rebels have launched their first home grown satellite TV station, trying to counter the regime’s powerful media machine, which churns out Muammar Gaddafi’s message, depicts the opposition as terrorists and drums up patriotic fervour by beaming images of burning buildings hit by NATO strikes.

Libya Alhurra, or Free Libya, began broadcasting last night, a major step in the rebels’ attempts to get their message to the Libyan public, whose main source of information on the crisis in their country has been Gaddafi’s TV and radio.

Thousands of Libyans gathered in a public square in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to watch the first broadcasts on a large screen, celebrating a new-found freedom from 40 years of media oppression.

“This is freedom. I hope this shows the true colour of Libyan people and their real faith in a new, free Libya,” station co-founder Zuhair Albarasi said from the square, which has become a rallying point for the revolt against Gaddafi.

The channel was born out of an internet video streaming site launched by Albarasi and fellow Libyan businessman Mohammed al-Nabbous, who, since the uprising began in mid-February, searched for a way to show it to the world and to the Libyans themselves.

They started toting video cameras to protests, jerry-rigged a home satellite system and turned to the web. The danger of their effort was quickly made clear: One man was shot by a sniper in Benghazi as he filmed rebels armed with rocket launchers preparing to confront Gaddafi’s tanks as they approached the city.

Due to a sharp curtailment of internet access in Libya, it became necessary to switch to satellite TV, which reaches about 90% of the Libyan public.

Qatar, which has been at the forefront of Arab nations assisting the rebels, hosts a pro-rebel Libyan station out of its capital, Doha. But Albarasi and his colleagues in Benghazi were determined to launch one from their nation’s soil.