INTRO:

 

0:03 – VO: The first protest was small…But by the end of the week, the Middle East’s latest … and bloodiest ... revolution was raging.

 

0:11 – MUSIC: Followed From the Shadows, Music Candy

 

0:23 – Muammar Al-Gaddafi: We will purify Libya inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alley by alley.

 

0:35 – Muammar Al-Gaddafi: No retreat! Forward! Forward! Forward!

 

1:27 – Title: Benghazi Rising

 

 

 

FIRST FRIDAY PRAYER AND PROTEST

 

1:49 – Just four days earlier, protesters had liberated Benghazi, defying brutal repression to drive government forces from the city.

 

But during the Friday prayer, grief overcame jubilation, as eastern Libya mourned its young revolution’s martyrs.

 

2:08 – Omi Ajabor, protester: I have a good life. It's not a revolution for bread for food. It's for freedom. This is the difference between us and the other revolutions. I have everything. I have a good villa, I have a good job, good money. I'm going every summer to Turkey or Egypt or anywhere. But we need freedom. We need dignity. We have to be human beings. We are not human beings with the Gaddafi regime.

 

2:37 – Singing: We will remain here so the pain will go. We will survive. So that life will be better.

 

2:52 – Hakeem, protester: He’s playing big games now, threatening the world, that Libyans are terrorists, that Al Qaeda will take over. All of this is nonsense. We don’t have radical people. Our Muslims are moderate. We will be I’m sure we will inspire a lot of Arab nations. I am sure. And also Muslim nations. Libya will inspire the world. Libya will inspire the world. Libya. Libya. Libya.

 

3:30 – Protester: They shot my fingers off and I took a bullet in the hand. We must persevere. God willing we will be victorious against Gaddafi.

 

3:39 – Isdah, protester from Tunisia: Defenders of the nation, the future will be glorious. The blood in our veins starts to flow. We will die so the nation survives.

 

 

 

ABU SALIM

 

3:52 – MUSIC: Middle East Underscore 5, James Gray

 

4:09 – Mufta Hamad Al-Feyturi: Thousands and thousands of young men’s lives were destroyed. Come with me and I’ll show you. Thousands. Thousands of young people he killed. Thousands. Not just a few.

 

4:26 – VO: The faces of the dead line this city’s walls. They are called martyrs, but they weren’t killed in Libya’s uprising.

 

4:33 – Mufta Hamad Al-Feyturi: It happend on January 1, 1993. It was around noon when they took my son. We were sitting in our home safe and sound. They didn’t find any explosives or bombs or anything else. They took the young men to prison.

 

5:06 – Mufta Hamad Al-Feyturi’s son would never return home.

 

5:10 – Mufta Hamad Al-Feyturi: If they take someone to prison, they should take care of them and give them a trial. And if they die in prison, they should bring the body back to us.

 

5:20 – VO: Jamal Wasally, a biochemistry professor, was murdered in the same Tripoli prison 15 years ago.

 

5:27 – Najwa Wasally: He’s innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong. Except he’s an activist and he’s asking for freedom of speech. And he’s opposing the regime. And in 1996, he’s killed in Abu Salim massacre.

 

5:45 – VO: The notorious Abu Salim Prison has been called Libya’s Abu Ghraib.

 

Human rights groups say government security forces there gunned down 1,200 prisoners in a single day in 1996.

 

The government covered up the massacre, and for four years, Najwa sent her husband clothes and photographs of their five children, not knowing he was dead.

 

She didn’t receive a death certificate until 2008…the cause of death was listed as unknown.

 

6:15 – Najwa Wasally: 1,200 people were killed at one time. They were all innocent, educated people. They are unarmed, all.

 

6:30 – VO: Najwa marches­ nearly everyday in demonstrations that would have been unthinkable not long ago.

 

But the unthinkable is exactly what happened on February 15, when a group of lawyers and family members of the Abu Salim victims took to the streets to demand justice.

 

6:48 – Lawyer: The reason behind the people’s uprising is [a human rights lawyer named] Fathi Terbel. He was arrested and held in the downtown police station. He was arrested and held in the downtown police station. The family members of the victims of the Abu Salim massacre gathered to protest.

 

7:16 – VO: The act of defiance of these families would shatter decades of silence and ignite the Libyan revolution.

 

But in a state ruled by fear, their small protest would not go unpunished.

 

 

 

HOSPITAL

 

7:29 – MUSIC: Middle East Underscore 5, James Gray

 

7:48 – VO: Gaddafi’s troops shot to kill. For days, hundreds of gunshot victims flooded the hospitals of Benghazi.

 

A week later, the wounded were still dying.

 

Off camera, this nurse confessed that her brother, shot in the stomach, would not survive.

 

8:08 – Sami Sayyed, Doctor, Intensive Care Unit: He was shot in chest. The bullet ripped apart his chest. He was shot twice. One bullet in the abdomen. The other in the chest. Here’s another case. He was shot in the neck.

 

8:31 – Journalist: So what happened to him?

 

8:33 – Other Doctor: He has quatrapalegia. He can't move his upper or lower limbs.

 

8:41 – Sami Sayyed, Doctor, Intensive Care Unit: I have never seen anything like this in my life. It’s the first time in my life I see such violence. Even on television, nothing like this. I have never seen civilian people being killed by their own government like this.

 

8:54 – VO: Some protesters were dismembered, ripped apart by anti-aircraft machine guns fired from Gaddafi’s military barracks, called the Katiba.

 

9:03 – Sami Sayyed, Doctor, intensive care unit: They were shooting them in the head and the chest.

 

9:09 – VO: In the hospital, the patients told horror stories.

 

9:13 – Morouf Abdel Aziz Khamis Al-Sharif:  I was shot by mercenaries who were wearing yellow hats. They were the people who started to shoot us. They shot me with a 14.5 mm bullet. They shot a 7 by 7 cm hole in my leg. It destroyed the bones in my lower leg.

 

9:31 – Abdel Salam Mohammed Al-Fakoush: They pulled the dead and injured into the Katiba.

 

9:34 – Patient: In the Katiba, they put is in a room and threw an explosive at us. There were six of us. I alone survived. The other five were martyred on the spot.

 

9:45 – Sami Sayyed, Doctor, intensive care unit: They even killed the driver of an ambulance. They killed the driver and they took the two ambulances. They detained the doctors for hours. They beat the doctors. They shot one doctor in the head.

 

10:01 – VO: Outside the morgue, the coffins were stacked, waiting to be filled.

 

10:06 – Ahmed Feyturi, doctor: These were soldiers who refused to take orders. They were shot and burned. The next day, they brought us eight martyrs, their bodies burned. We buried them without knowing their identity.

 

10:22 – VO: Three bodies occupied every space at the morgue.

 

New coffins arrived everyday, as family members took away their loved ones.

 

10:30 – MUSIC: Middle East Underscore 5, James Gray

 

 

 

 

KATIBA

 

10:57 – VO: The crackdown was swift…and brutal.

 

Security forces violently broke up the protest for the victims of Abu Salim.

 

Two days later, on February 17th, a massive demonstration was organized on Facebook.

 

Once again, the protesters were attacked.

 

The bloodshed only further incited the people of Benghazi…they were joined by thousands in other cities throughout Libya.

 

The protesters armed themselves with rocks.

 

Gaddafi’s forces fired back with bullets.

 

11:44 – Protesters: The cowards are shooting us with live bullets.

 

11:50 – VO: Sulaiman Khalifa is a bank teller who had never before protested.

 

11:55 – Sulaiman Khalifa, bank teller: Suddenly soldiers from this gate, actually it's broken now, started shooting at us with live rounds. So what I did actually, I went this way to try to protect myself, to seek cover here. One of the guys who was beside me got a bullet in his thigh, his right thigh. So I tried to move with him. We couldn't see anything only the soldiers are coming out, speeding. I got caught over here, right there. They were pointing their guns at me. So I couldn’t move. I stopped. Your hands up. Come with us.

 

12:33 – VO: Sulaiman was detained and taken to the Katiba, Gaddafi’s military headquarters in Benghazi.

 

12:37 – MUSIC: Middle East Underscore 9, James Gray

 

12:59 – Sulaiman Khalifa, bank teller: Actually was so scared and frightened because it was the first experience for me to go inside this Katiba. It's a kind of nightmare for us to be here. I have a background about this place. They used to torture people. Those who were against Gaddafi, actually they were caught inside, being tortured…They put us here. This place. They start beating us and they put us like this. With our head like this. And then I was out of breath so I moved like this. So he kicked me from the side, and he say ok stay here. And start using the rifles.

 

13:35 – MUSIC: Middle East Underscore 9, James Gray

 

13:38 – VO: The Katiba was the most notorious symbol of the Gaddafi regime in Benghazi.

 

Located in the middle of the city, it was at once a military barracks, a residence for Muammar Al-Gaddafi and a feared prison.

 

Gaddafi gave speeches from inside the Katiba…nearby, prisoners were kept in underground cells.

 

The Katiba was Benghazi’s Bastille…if the protesters managed to take it, Benghazi, and all of eastern Libya, would be theirs.

 

It was the defining battle of the Libyan uprising … Saleh Al Galal, a computer technician from a middle class family, was on the front lines.

 

14:21 – Saleh Al-Galal, computer technician: It’s not easy to take on a military barracks. They have the guns, we’re unarmed.

 

14:27 – But the killings only served to spur on the protesters.

 

14:30 – Protesters chanting: There is one God but God. The martyrs are loved by God.

 

14:36 – Saleh Al-Galal, computer technician: Those on the front lines knew they would die. May God have mercy on them. These are respectable people. They weren’t on drugs. They were engineers, doctors, students. There were even children who didn’t know what was happening.

 

14:52 – VO: The protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails from the roof of this abandoned police building.

 

Gaddafi’s forces fired back with bullets and artillery.

 

15:02 – Saleh Al-Galal, computer technician: Imagine when this hits someone who can't defend themselves? What would this do to a human being? How can you use this on your own people?

 

15:14 – VO: For four days and four nights, the protesters battled Gaddafi’s forces.

 

Bullets rained down from the high walls of the Katiba.

 

15:27 – Saleh Al-Galal, computer technician: We kept trying to get inside. But it was impossible. We were here Thursday and many died. Then Friday came and more died than on Thursday. Then came Saturday and even more were killed than on Thursday and Friday.

 

15:42 – VO: The soldiers fired on funeral processions passing near the Katiba and the death toll soared.

 

15:49 – Protesters: Keep going…Let’s go people of Benghazi.

 

15:54 – VO: But so did the numbers of protesters.

 

15:57 – Saleh Al-Galal: We weren’t on drugs. Seeing the blood is what drove us crazy…Too many martyrs of Benghazi were sacrificed at the Katiba. We all knew we would not leave until we got into the Katiba.

 

 

 

 

MARTYR

 

16:15 – MUSIC: Desert Bed, Dewey Dellay

 

16:31 – Salam, Mehdi Mohammed Zew’s brother: The martyr was born in Benghazi in 1962. He graduated from secondary school. He got a job at an oil company in Benghazi. The martyr, Mehdi Mohammed Zew, lived in a modest apartment.

 

16:56 – VO: Of all those killed during the siege of the Katiba, none is more honored than Mehdi Mohammed Zew.

 

In Benghazi, he is considered a hero, credited with committing the act of martyrdom that brought down the Katiba, and liberated eastern Libya.

 

17:11 – Mehdi Mohammed Zew’s niece: These are the daughters of my uncle. He took his car and packed it with two massive bombs. Dynamite and cooking gas. After that, he parked his car on the street. He read from the Koran. Then, he rammed his car into the Katiba. He destroyed the gate of the Katiba, the symbol of oppression. God is great.

 

17:37 – Cell phone video voice: He’s attacking the Katiba.

 

17:41 – VO: This cell phone video is the only known recording of Mehdi’s act.

 

17:47 -- Cell phone video voice: In God’s name, he is martyred. God is great.

 

17:57 – MUSIC: Desert Bed, Dewey Dellay

 

18:05 – Dr. Mohammed Hussein Zew, Mehdi’s cousin: He was watching the kids being killed. Boys, girls. A massacre actually. He had no political interests before. He was a decent man with a good salary…Seeing somebody sacrifice himself in a moment like that. Running his car into the fire and exploding made the moral of the masses uprise. And they started running, sacrificing themselves. Many of them died after him.

 

18:49 – VO: A week after Mehdi’s death, his family gathers outside their home to mourn.

 

18:54 –Salam, Mehdi’s brother: My brother Mehdi was very compassionate. Whenever the family had a problem, he was the one who solved it. His brothers, friends, cousins, we were all affected by the Gaddafi regime. But thank God since Benghazi was liberated on Monday people are happy.

 

19:23 – VO: Mehdi ran his car into the Katiba on Sunday, February 20, in the early afternoon.

 

Hours later, Gaddafi’s soldiers fled the barracks, and the city.

 

19:34 – Dr. Mohammed Hussein Zew, Mehdi’s cousin: Everybody tells me that he's one that made the act that opened the Katiba. But I believe if he didn't do it somebody else will do it. I saw kids who are braver than anybody you could imagine. They are not brave, they are ordinary kids just like him, just like him, just like anybody sitting here. But their motivation is different. They have seen things. They are suffering unbearable things. And this makes you a lion. From a cat you've changed into a lion.

 

 

 

 

LIBERATION OF BENGHAZI

 

20:26 – VO: Government soldiers dealt the final blow…They revolted and joined the protesters to root out Gaddafi’s troops.

 

The celebration of Benghazi’s liberation lasted days.

 

For the first time in 42 years, Gaddafi lost control of eastern Libya…But he remained in power in Tripoli and the people of Benghazi were not taking any chances.

 

They seized weapons from the Katiba and other military bases…AK-47s and heavy artillery.

 

21:05 – Man with gun: When the regime falls and God willing Gaddafi dies, there will be safety and things will return to normal again.

 

STARTING A NEW COUNTRY FROM SCRATCH

 

21:14 – MUSIC: Abdullah’s song, recorded at Rebel Media Center

 

21:31 – VO: The protesters had swept away all traces of Muammar Al-Gaddafi and his regime.

 

From one day to the next, the people of Benghazi began building a new country from scratch.

 

An army of volunteers rose to the task.

 

Professionals assumed positions of leadership in what would become a transitional government.

 

Students directed traffic and manned checkpoints.

 

The wealthy donated food and other supplies.

 

Those who seized weapons provided security and began training for battle.

 

Gaddafi’s manifesto, the Green Book, was burned.

 

His green flag, inaugurated in 1977, went underfoot.

 

In its place, the tricolor flag, appeared everywhere, in every shape and form.

 

There was an overwhelming consensus against foreign intervention. The people of Benghazi insisted they would march on Tripoli and overthrow Gaddafi themselves.

 

Burnt out government buildings took on a new purpose.

 

The Katiba became a sort of tourist attraction. Visitors marveled at underground prisons while others dug in search of detainees rumored to be buried.

 

The courthouse was converted into the seat of a new government still in formation.

 

And the feared high court, where secret files were kept on political activists, became a rebel media center.

 

 

 

 

MEDIA CENTER

 

23:03 – Muammar Al-Gaddafi: There are just a few of them, terrorists…They give them drugs. They have no choice…They are trying to transform Libya into an emirate of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri.

 

23:14 – MUSIC: Abdullah’s song, recorded at Rebel Media Center.

 

23:18 – VO: If there are terrorists or drug addicts among the young people at the vanguard of Libya’s uprising, they’re not easy to find.

 

Most of the young people running the rebel media center are tech-savvy university students.

 

23:32 – Hussain Kablan, Architecture Student: After we took the Katiba, we watching the TV on the Libya channel, his Libya channel. We are mercenaries, we're Al Qaeda, we're taking a lot of drugs. Benghazi was taken by men from Qaeda. Bullshit like this. So we start this office, to show the people, show the world the real who we are.

 

24:00 – VO: Hussain and a few friends occupied the burned out high court building and began uploading cell phone videos of the uprising to Youtube and Facebook.

 

24:09 – Hussain Kablan, Architecture Student: If you have weapon, you're going to go to Ras Lanuf to help the army. I don't have weapons, so I have to do something. So I decide to volunteer this building…So I'm an architect. I'm a student. I'm good at Photoshop. I'm good at video.

 

24:28 – VO: This harrowing video was the first one Hussain uploaded…it shows pro-Gaddafi thugs wearing yellow hats rampaging down a Benghazi street.

 

24:42 – Hussain Kablan, Architecture Student: They were hitting us. They went even inside the houses and some of them raped the women.

 

24:53 – VO: During the uprising, Gaddafi cut the Internet, but Hussain and his friends, most of them architecture students, found clandestine satellite connections.

 

25:03 – Hussain Kablan, Architecture Student: Muammar Gaddafi said that we were fighting with weapons. They know that the people don’t have weapons. See. They are just walking and shooting. It’s like a game for them. So they know it was so important to show this video to know that they are lying that we don't have anything to fight with.

 

25:27 – VO: Now, Hussain gives the videos directly to foreign journalists visiting the media center, which has become the hub of the revolution’s youth movement.

 

25:37 – Young people chanting: Hey Gaddafi, you crazy fool. You’re the one taking drugs.

 

26:00 – Mohammed Al-Zawwan Al-Sherif, medical student: My name is Mohammed Al-Zawwan Al-Sherif… I’m a volunteer. I am a volunteer at the Media Center. I do registration here. I assign press credentials to foreign journalists. We register all the journalists. We also have a designated area here for artists, for writers, for poets and for journalists. And of course they’re all volunteers. There are painters and artists. They all came here voluntarily.

 

26:32 – Young people chanting: Hey Gaddafi. The country has spoken. Your days are numbered.

 

26:40 – VO: The young people here have lived their entire lives under Gaddafi’s iron-fisted rule.

 

Now, after decades of stifling censorship, creative expression is bursting at the seams.

 

26:52 – Rebel Media Center artist: Every person here is using their talent. An artist can make a caricature to express his anger and the suppression of his freedom.

 

27:04 – Young people chanting: He shoots is people with live ammunition. Hey Gaddafi. Shame, shame.

 

27:11 – Rebel Media Center artist: Because this is what he has done to the people. No one could give their view at all. Even around your closest friend, you couldn’t give your views on Gaddafi. No one could ever say anything about him.  If anyone dared joke about him, they would detain them and torture them.

 

27:24 – MUSIC: Abdullah’s song, recorded at Rebel Media Center.

 

27:31 – VO: The media center’s music spans the genres.

 

These rappers created a studio where they write and record songs about martyrdom and resistance.

 

27:49 – Rap song: This is a revolution. This is a model of solidarity, liberty and freedom. This is a revolution. For the memory of our ancestors. We’ll be heores and have freedom or we’ll be martyred.

 

27:59 – MUSIC: Hussain’s song.

 

28:04 – VO: Even Hussain, when he’s not uploading and archiving videos, has found the time to join the ranks of the revolution’s musicians.

 

He sang and produced this track in English for an international audience, uploaded as part of a video montage to Facebook.