to feel shocked at the coverage of Gaddafi's death?

[IvySedaiballs]

I don't think she should have been killed like that. IMO he should have been captured, tried and then hanges or whatever. they had him, alive. apparently he was begging for mercy.
now he is dead and can not answer for his vile crimes.

none of the newscoverage that I have seen has addressed this, everyone is just celebrating. yes, he was a bad man, but this doesn't sit right with me.

also, showing pictures of hos dead body body on the six pm news?!

Oh I agree, I just find the blood thirsty gloating a little uncomfortable and hypocritical.

Jeremy Kyle talking about drugs is hardly the same as showing a bloodied corpse close-up during tea time....you're right that people in that country may have a desire to see him like that....but we don't need it here do we.

On the one hand people critisze violent computer games but then the all nod and stare at something like this.

I am against violence in all forms....I know that wars happen...but I think it' was incredibly presumptious of the media to shove those pictures at us.

It reminds me of the way they used to show hangings and other death sentences to the general public here...but that was hundreds of years ago....we have (I thought) moved on.

If that man had been killed by forces in a field in England do you imagine the media would have shot pictures of it then? That the authorities would have allowed it? Of course they wouldn't have. So why did they show it because it happened in a different country?

To whoever (bizzarely) mentioned Black OPs, no I don't personally think agame that glorifies war is a terribly good idea. But I wasn't shocked by these images at all. Maybe I'm just desensitised, I dunno. I'd be far more shocked if it was an innocent victim (that poor little Chinese girl, that shocked me). An evil dictator who we all know got what he deserved? Nope. No shock or outrage from me. That doesn't make me bloodthirsty or taking any pleasure from this. But we did all know this would happen. What difference would a trial make when he'd be put to death anyway?

No one was interested in letting him live - too many embarrassing secrets. Also comparing the mores of safe suburban Britain with a battlefield against a hated dictator is patronizing IMO

I don't think this is about what happened to Gadaffi, the rights and wrongs there, or any relative "misery" competition.

It's about the showing of the trophy video of a lynching on the 6pm news.

I don' t think you read the OP's question there Edith.

Flicked on the daily mail website for a quick look at news and am so sickened by the graphic photos of his beating and death it has left me shaken tbh, i cant even bare to watch the video, dont know what to say really just so horrified by it!!!!!

My sympathies are with the missing men and children of Mistrata and the thousands who went into the prison system never to be seen again.

it was inevitable that he would be killed like this and not handed over to authorities

with regard to the footage, there is a clear warning of what the report contains before it is shown.

Im sorry i have no sympathies for this man, lets hope his murderous torturer son is captured as well as most of the extended family which includes the daughter in law who poured boiling water over her etheopian nanny and tortured her.

i could link to the nanny but the images are truely horrific so i wont.

Am glad you posted OP as I felt I was alone with my feeling. He was a horrible ruthless dictatator but his death does not sit well with me. I just saw an old man covered in blood it was very brutal and barbaric. By treating him this way it is not showing a new civilised Libya to the world. I would feel the same sympathy for any person killed in this way. I noticed there were no women on the streets. Men starting and fighting wars, nothing ever changing. Do we really ever learn from history ?

The first I knew that he was dead was when I logged on to the BBC website to be confronted with a photograph of his dead body. I cannot believe the BBC thought that was appropriate. I was just grateful I wasn't logging on with dd1 to play some CBeebies games.

It is gratuitous and unnecessary to be printing said picture on the front page of newspapers.

I'm not sorry he's dead but I'd have preferred to see him tried and convicted and for his victims to receive some sort of justice. Imo whoever shot him in cold blood is just as much a murderer as he was.

I'm actually writing my dissertation on (basically) war-time atrocities.

Many argue that in fact the sanitisation of the news not showing any bloody images of war in fact makes it easier for governments to go to war, because the vast majority of the population will not have seen the real effects of it.

Look at Somalia in 1993 -- when graphic images of the dead US soldiers were shown, the public demand for withdrawing was so great that the US could not stay in.

I understand it's upsetting and obviously people shouldn't be forced to see them. But I'm not entirely comfortable either with the news media deciding on their own that certain things shouldn't be shown because they're too upsetting. There are political consequences to that.

But these are two separate issues.

It was inevitable that Gaddafi would die. He didn't want to surrender, and the rebels didn't want him to stand trial.

But it is no less barbaric to hall a man out of a pipe and beat him to death before shooting him in the head in front of a baying mob if he is a bad person than if he was not. That doesn't mean he necessarily deserves sympathy - live by the sword, die by the sword and all that. But it is perfectly possible to not sympathize with the fact he is dead while at the same time being appalled at the sheer brutality with which one human being can kill another.

If I were Libyan would I be glad he was dead? Quite probably. But if I stopped to think about it for just a minute could I be certain that the new rulers wouldn't employ the same kind of tactics against those that committed wrongs under their rule? Are the Libyan people really any safer under the rule of people who can mercilessly and publically beat to death another human being? The rebels have certainly stamped their authority... and once the Libyan people have had a chance to reflect I'm not entirely sure that it's going to be the new beginning they had hoped for.

As for the pictures - no, we do not need to see them. You may want to see them, in which case go and look for them. The media is perfectly able to publish pictures further into its edditions without needing to blatantly display them on the front pages where there's no chance of escaping having to see them. "death of Gaddafi, story on page 6," is perfectly sufficient for the front page..

What ARE you talking about wannabe???? "No less barbaric to haul a man out of pipe and beat him to death"

Of course it is barbric and what is MORE barbaric is the then share the images of this with the general public...people like me who take care NOT to look at sick websites and nasty computer games and violent films BECAUSE THEY UPSET ME!

And it was me fuck who mentioned Black OPs and it was not bizzarre.....people play at killing, making a game out of war....I mentioned it as a way of pointing out that thngs like it have made people hard.

to me it is all of it- the barbaric way he was killed, and the way the images are being forced on us by the media.

whoever said none of us have lived under a dictator - like I said, I was there, in Bucharest, during Ceaucescu's time in power, we all suffered the consequences of nonconformity and witnessed the fighting. I can, to this day, see the lines of corpses and blood if I close my eyes. I do not need media coverage of it, no matter where in the world it happens.
Yes, I want to know he is dead, but spare me the images of an old, dead man covered in blood.

I'm sorry about that Ivy. My remarks were directed more at UK and US audiences who have not lived through such things firsthand.

Particularly I am thinking of the States (where I am from) and the way people were incredibly gung-ho about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thinking that if they had to see the actual results of those wars they would not be so enthusiastic about it.

I have nothing to say about the fact or the manner of his death. I didn't have to live under his regime so I don't think I'm qualified. If I was directly affected by the Lockerbie or IRA bombings I would also feel entitled to a view, but I wasn't.

I don't want to see the images though. I think the media has overestimated how desensitised we are to this kind of thing. If there are political reasons why Libyans would have to see it to believe it then fair enough, they don't apply to the rest of the world though.

i have just thrown the first 12 pages of the newspaper in the bin.

All of the newspapers had horrible photos on them, disgraceful. i will be keeping the news switched off till this quietens down.

regardless of what he did, i dont want to see these images and want to protect my DD from them too.

My son is home poorly today and we put on BBC news channel and the pictures came up and ds was horrified and said why are they showing these pics in the middle of the day?? And he's in year 9 and even he knows it's inappropriate we quickly turned over, just such awful pictures and with no prior warning about being upsetting

susie sorry your DS saw them.

also wanted to say, I completely agree with those who said that if you want to see the footage, it is available for you to see, and it should be, but with some warning, or through clickable links, not on every newspaper front and most of the TV channels.

In fact, seeing how many others are angry and upset about this, I want an apology and a promise that in future the national media will be held accountable for showing images of dead or dying people.
I do understand that every case is different but this needs looking at.

They just said on the radio that there is to be an enquiry into his manner of death.

It probably wasn't legal the way they did it. We need an enquiry into how images of such a disturbing nature were shown to us.

I dont have a problem with it being on the news with a warning. I can censor the tv and not put the news on if the kids are there. I watched it when they were in bed this morning. I havent watched the lunchtime news as dd3 is here. I wont watch the news again until 10pm knowing that the images are there.

I havent been out today and i never really thought about the papers. They have a warning on the news but the images are on the front of nearly every paper in the country. Im sure dd whos 9 will come across a paper this evening if she goes to the shop or maybe in a friends house over the weekend.

I totally agree that the images should not be on the front of the papers on public display.

There are images which havent been put out yet so they will probably be on the front of Saturdays papers. Its pretty hard if your round the shops on Saturday to make sure your kids dont see a paper

I'm horrified by the images. Regardless of what you think of someone or how much you despise them, I still don't think you need to see pictures of them battered, bleeding and with a bullet in the head.

I don't need to see that.

Is anyone complaining? Who do you complain to? Individual papers? Ofcom?

What surprises me is that there seems to be no debate in any of the press at present as to whether these photos should have been seen. Unless I'm missing something (and I hope I am. It's very sad such graphic images have been shown without it sparking any debate in the press about desensitization and it being shown pre-watershed). I know they are concentrating on what's happened, I just can't believe that no journalist has as yet brought it up. It's clearly distressed a lot of people. I wonder if anyone is complaining?