In January 2011, while Egypt was going through the throes of the Arab Spring, Highlander was one of the rare netizens on the Libyan blogosphere to subtly speculate if the ‘West’ would allow former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to be toppled by what was increasingly looking like a no going back popular revolution. She blogged: Leave Mubarak alone as he is keeping us safe we don't really care about anybody or anything else :P It was as far as one could get into, in a Libya under Muammar Gaddafi's strong rule. By February, Libya was engulfed in it’s own uprising. The feeling before Tripoli was crushed was that anything was possible; so some bloggers ventured into bolder territory either reporting directly about what was happening, for example the battle for survival going on in Benghazi and how all cities had begun to rise with the sense of urgency so well expressed by PH: • Libyanna ( mobile company ) sent a message to all the citizens of Benghazi telling them to go home; as it is their job to defend Benghazi. • Weapons and soldiers arrived from Bieda and its surrounding area. • The 64th battalion and Abdulfath Younis's ( عبدالفتاح يونس) special forces battalion attacking the main revolutionary guard garrison in Benghazi ( الفضيل بوعمر). Fighting is ongoing. • General Population of Benghazi arming up with everything in their grasp. • People chanting Muammer here we come for you, death is coming. • Crowds are larger than ever seen ( they were nearly 100,000 ) three days ago. • Helicopter shot down by the people of Benghazi. And the more ‘Morse’ code like missive by Khaijateri about Gaddafi’s infamous and terrifying Zenga Zenga speech, where we were all called rats – and addicts: We watched, we snacked. We had mixed feelings: disbelief, horror, amazement, among other feelings, but mostly just disgust. March was immortalised by the burning the Green Book, which contains Gaddafi's governing philosophy, as Anglo-Libyan said: For the first time in my life I agree with the burning of a book, the idiotic green book of Gaddafi the murderer, the brave people of the city of Misrata stand as one and send a message to gaddafi, until when this mad dictator is going to claim that these brave people are drunks and drug addicts![sic] The Internet was cut in March and our voices were silenced except for those who had Thuraya phones or VSAT connections. This meant that we relied on smuggled videos broadcast on Arab satellite TVs. City after city was muzzled and Libyans outside the country or those in the liberated East took it upon themselves to amplify our voices while the rest of Libya was waiting for the no fly zone. Whiteafrican, in Manchester, UK, said: i am so proud of the Libyan men, they have proven to the world that they are indeed lions of the dessert, the men of benghazi, bayda, derna, tobrok, breyga, ras lanuf, ajdabeeya, the men of zawia, zintan and misrata. standing in only their sandals and in many cases, there fists in front of tanks, missiles, RPG's and the latest in weapons, so that Libya will be free is courageous and this courage has not been seen in a long time.[sic] Meanwhile Ruwida Ashour pleaded in Benghazi: i cant write more words & what has happened & happening now in Libya is unbelievable ………………please support Libyans with any thing you could do even with just a smile , profile picture or any thing ………we still have money but we need moral support .[sic] This is also the month when Eman Al Obaidi escaped her rapists and a worldwide petition was started to bring attention to her plight. It was the month of the late Hannu’s last post too. The Libyan blogosphere will miss Hannu very much as her humour and honesty were a role model. In April, while the NATO bombing campaign was continuing, Libyans were being traumatised by the alleged mass rape stories which were coming out and many like Soad were trying to share their desperation with the world: Young girls and women, who were virgins, were subjected to brutal gang rape and torture; many of the incidents were filmed on mobile phones and were circulated to increase the humiliation of these victims and their families. Many victims were infected with HIV and some got pregnant; it is a huge problem and needs to be tackled head-on, no beating around the bush. As spring turned to summer, we had the siege of Misrata and the ongoing fighting in the Western Mountains. We had the back and front battles for the coastal oil towns of Brega, Ajdabia and Ras Lanuf; and we had the fear that Libya will be partitioned and the increasing numbers of internally and externally displaced Libyan families.