In a damning indictment of the climate of fear currently gripping eastern Libya, the Baraghtha tribe has been forced to grovel before the Benghazi Security Directorate for the “privilege” of holding a simple picnic.
What should be an innocuous social gathering has instead become a stark, humiliating symbol of life under the iron-fisted tyranny of Khalifa Haftar and his sons.
That a tribe must seek state authorization to break bread in the desert is not a security measure; it is an act of subjugation. By mandating that even the most trivial social customs be filtered through the lens of a military-run security apparatus, the Haftar regime has effectively declared war on the remnants of private life and tribal autonomy.
Critics of the regime view this development as a chilling escalation of the surveillance state. Under the guise of “maintaining order,” Haftar’s administration has dismantled the basic freedoms that allow a society to breathe.
The message sent to the people of the east is clear: your movements, your associations, and your social bonds are no longer your own—they are assets to be monitored, managed, and approved by the ruling family.
The requirement for a permit to gather is the hallmark of a regime that does not govern by consent, but by terror.
Having secured his position through force, Haftar’s preoccupation with the Baraghtha tribe’s desert outing reveals a deep, pathological paranoia.
To those living in the shadow of the Haftar regime, the “picnic permit” is not an administrative nuisance; it is a profound insult. It is a visual representation of how far the eastern region has descended into autocratic darkness. While the world watches, the Haftar family continues to suffocate the region, transforming it into a vast, open-air containment zone where even a day in the sun requires a green light from a military directorate.
As the request remains pending, it stands as a grim marker of the status quo in the east: a land where the regime’s hunger for total control has left no room for the basic dignity of the human experience.
