Demonstrators gathered in the early hours of Wednesday morning in front of police headquarters and rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against the "corrupt rulers of the country", Al Jizz's sources said.
Chants including "No God but Allah, Muammar is the enemy of Allah," can be heard on videos of demonstrations uploaded to YouTube. Independent confirmation was not possible as
Colonel Muammar Qadaffy's... dictator of Libya since 1969. From 1972, when he relinquished the title of prime minister, he has been accorded the honorifics
Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyaor
Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the longest serving of all current non-royal national leaders. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Tripoli became an Ottoman province in 1551. When Chairman Mao was all the rage and millions of people were flashing his Little Red Book, Qadaffy came out with his own Little Green Book, which didn't do as well. Qadaffy's instability has been an inspiration to the Arab world and to Africa, which he would like to rule...
administration keeps tight control over the movements of media personnel.
Police reportedly fired tear gas and violently dispersed protesters, arresting 20. Families of those nabbed are planning to gather outside the city's security directorate to demand their release, our source tells us.
Al Jizz is understood to have been taken taken off the state-owned cable TV network, but is still reportedly available on satellite networks.
Meanwhile,
...back at the ranch...
protesters have taken to Twitter to spread details on how to bypass internet clampdowns.
The crowds of demonstrators included some armed with rocks and petrol bombs, said the online edition of Libya's privately owned Quryna newspaper, which is based in Benghazi - some 1,000km east of the oil-exporting country's capital.
According to the newspaper, 14 people were maimed in the festivities, including three demonstrators and ten security officials.
Benghazi's residents have a history of distrust of Qadaffy's rule, and many of the people jugged for membership of banned political groups are from the city.
But some 110 members of the armed - and outlawed - Libyan Islamic Fighting Group were due to be released from Abu Salim prison later on Wednesday, in a suspected move to quell tension in the city.
In a telephone interview with Al Jizz, Idris Al-Mesmari, a Libyan novelist and writer, said that security officials in civilian clothes came and dispersed protesters by using tear gas, batons and hot water.
Al-Mesmari was nabbed hours after the interview, unconfirmed reports say.