Advocacy Early in The Civil War
Nayed took part in demonstrations in Tripoli on 19 February and witnessed first-hand the brutality of the regime against its own people. Together with other Libyan ulema from Tripoli and Western region of Libya, Nayed established the Network of Free Ulema. The network comprised traditional religious scholars and they called for an immediate end to the killings by the regime.
On 20 February, Nayed left Tripoli for Istanbul in order to help the campaign against Gaddafi. In Istanbul and Ankara he talked to the Chief Advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister Ibrahim Kalin and described the situation in Libya and requested that Turkey help the Free Libya movement and condemn Gaddafi. He also requested that the Turkish government send immediate medical supplies to hospitals in Benghazi through the Turkish ships that were evacuating their nationals. The day after, Nayed gave an interview to BBC Radio 4, in which he decried Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Gaddafi government, and called on them to stop attacks on innocent people and on the international community to help the innocent people.
As the situation in Libya escalated, Nayed, along with the Network of Free Ulema, issued a fatwa calling for open rebellion. The statement read:
Two days ago we made an appeal to the Libyan regime and its helpers to stop killing their brothers and sisters. They have demonstrated total arrogant impunity and continued, and even intensified, their bloody crimes against humanity. They have thereby demonstrated total infidelity to the guidance of God and His beloved Prophet (peace be upon him). This renders them undeserving of any obedience or support, and makes rebelling against them by all means possible a divinely ordained duty upon every able Muslim, male or female, to the extent of their capacity. We support our brave brother and colleague Sheikh al-Sadiq al-Ghriani in his recent fatwas, and call for his immediate release un- harmed. We also call for the immediate release of all imprisoned demonstrators, including many of our young students.On 22 February, the Network of Free Ulema called for urgent medical supplies and for the international community to help the Free Libya cause and condemn Gaddafi. Then on 23 February, the Network of Free Ulema issued an endorsement of the Declaration of the 17 February Revolution stating: “Today, we thank God for giving us the honor of endorsing and fully supporting the Declarations of the Revolution of February 17th, 2011, announced by our brother Dr. Al-Tarhuni and broadcast locally over the past few days, and on Al-Jazeera (Arabic) this morning.”
In the following days, Nayed contacted and briefed a number of key international leaders and institutions in order to galvanize international support for the revolution: Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and World Council of Churches (which led to it issuing a statement on 22 February).
Since the statements issued by the Network of Free Ulema on 19 February, Dr Nayed’s Kalam Research and Media office in Dubai became a centre for media activity supporting the Free Libya efforts. The KRM office, through its massive media network around the world, ensured that all statements of the Network of Free Ulema would be circulated as widely as possible to all media. The office also liaised with international journalists and governments to ensure they had up to date information on the Libyan crisis. The KRM office worked 24 hours daily to maintain media pressure and then very quickly expanded its team of Libyan experts, and with the blessing of the UAE government, and began engaging in diplomatic work with NATO to support the efforts of the Executive Team.
The KRM office also relayed to the media agencies (Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Sky News, and other international networks) video and audio footage from Tripoli and other parts of Libya about the situation there. There footage was received through direct contacts in the capital. On 23 February, Nayed made a second visit to Istanbul to seek medical aid for Libyan hospitals and met with the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to update him and to thank him for their efforts. Meanwhile, the situation in Tripoli worsened and due to his exposure to the media, threats to his family members in Tripoli also increased. On 24 February, the KRM media team joined with a team of young Libyans in Dubai to coordinate a strategic media campaign for New Libya. All efforts to place speakers, feature articles, and information packs were increased across all international media. Teams were working from multiple locations in the Middle East and Europe and the US. Then on 26 February the Network of Free Ulema issued a statement calling for more humanitarian help for the Libyan people and calling for arrest warrants to be issued by the International Criminal Court: “Please urgently send into Libya as much medical and humanitarian aid as possible. The Egyptian-Libyan border, Benghazi Port, and Misrata Port are now open, and we urge Libyans inside and outside the country to help in every way they can with logistics and distribution. We very much appreciate the early response from Turkey and from the International Red Cross/Red Crescent in this regard.” The Network of Free Ulema also issued a statement supporting and endorsing the National Transitional Council.
In March the Network of Free Ulema also issued a statement supporting the efforts of Libyan women in the Free Libya movement.
On 15 March, after the constant targeting, killing and harassment of journalists by the Gaddafi government, the Network of Free Ulema issued a new statement:
'The bravery of Libyan and international journalists in reporting on the facts on the ground in the face of violence, obstruction and propaganda by the regime is nothing short of heroic. Without their efforts the outside world would not be able to understand the truly shocking nature of the evil that Gaddafi’s thugs are perpetrating against the Libyan people.'Read more about this topic: Aref Ali Nayed, Activities During The 2011 Libyan Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words early, civil and/or war:
“An early dew woos the half-opened flowers”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)