I Lost One of My Legs, But Not My Hope

Emad Saleh Alagouri,
Benghazi, Libya

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My story of the February 17 Revolution started when youths began to write on the Internet and chose the date of February 17 for peaceful demonstrations against the tyrant’s regime. I wondered if the Libyan people would actually stand up against this tyrannical rule of 42 years.

What happened was that on February 15 internal security detained defense attorney Fathi Turbul who was representing the families of the men executed in Abu Salim prison. The families of the executed prisoners held a peaceful demonstration asking for Fathi Turbul to be freed. Because the place where he was detained was so close to my house, the demonstrators came into my neighborhood. They kept saying: “The people want to bring the regime down,” and here my journey with the revolution began.

I went out that day and added my voice to the other demonstrators’ asking for the regime to fall. From that night on [...]

In Voices 4 Libya Emad tells of all that happened to him until