The mayor of Abu Salim municipality in Tripoli, Abdelrahman Al-Hamdi, has slammed Libyan Channel’s stance and “far-fetched” coverage of the Thursday-Friday clashes that took place in the district.

Speaking on the phone on Libya Channel, Abu Salim mayor said the coverage and programs allocated on air on the channel for tracing the clashes in Abu Salim were aimed at igniting more violence and division between the two warring sides and providing the public with magnified fake news.

Libya Channel, which is, along with Libya 218 TV Channel, based in Jordan and financed by the UAE, have used the then-going clashes between Al-Burki and Ganiewa armed brigades in Tripoli’s Abu Salim district to provoke violence and create media-imagined state of horror and pandemonium in the capital.

Libya Channel is owned by Libya’s former ambassador to the UAE, Aref Al-Nayed, who is infamous for his loyalty to UAE officials, reports says, adding that the channel was founded by about 25.6 million US dollars.

On the phone with Libya Channel, Abu Salim mayor added that the reaction of the channel to the clashes in Tripoli was aimed at scoring some points to the benefit of the channel’s political agenda at the expense of the people living in the district.

Libyan politicians and observers condemned the Libya Channel exaggerated coverage of the clashes in which it used eyewitnesses with no identities and no pictures to describe the situation of the families and the district, giving political-driven false reporting to entice more violence in Libya’s capital.

“If your channel is so concerned about Libyan children in Abu Salim in Tripoli, then I reckon it should be equally concerned about the children of Benghazi’s Ganfouda, whom you never mentioned on a one-minute on air coverage.” Al-Hamdi slammed Libya Channel’s biased coverage on Friday.

The two warring sides in Abu Salim reached late on Friday a ceasefire truce after two days of fighting.

 

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