Tawfik Bensaud
My message to Libya's youth is, you are powerful and you can make change. You just need to take the opportunity and act.
Tawfik Bensaud was an eighteen year-old youth activist and blogger. On the night of 19 September 2014, gunmen assassinated human rights defenders Messrs Tawfik Bensaud and Sami ElKawafi while they were driving near Al-Kish in Benghazi. Both of them campaigned for peace and democracy in Libya and publicly stood against the bombings and killings. Few days before being killed, the youth activists had gathered to discuss crisis management in Libya and the role of the youth. Tawfik Bensaud had expressed to the media that “a military movement alone cannot solve the crisis; there must a civil movement that works parallel to it. If young people are given a chance, they can find a peaceful solution. My message to Libya's youth is, you are powerful and you can make change. You just need to take the opportunity and act.”
Libya remains a country mired in political turmoil as competing political factions vie for power amid a landscape marked by the rise of independent localized militas, some of which have aligned with forces loyal to the former regime or with transnational Islamist movements.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) remain at severe risk due to the general insecurity and the spread of the armed conflict across the country. HRDs have been victims of assassinations, kidnappings, violent attacks, torture and unlawful detentions. The situation deteriorated further when armed groups took control of major cities. The closure of foreign diplomatic missions also affected HRDs as it deprived them of a support network.
