Gaddafi grilled by Italian students on rights, democracy

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is not used to being challenged at home about democracy and human rights but he faced some tough questions at Rome university yesterday.

"When will there be free elections in Libya?" one student at the university asked Colonel Gaddafi, on his first visit to Italy since taking power 40 years ago, after the Libyan leader gave a long, often rambling talk on the state of the world.

The student asked: "How do you define democracy? It does not mean just having schools and hospitals that work. Even (wartime Italian dictator Benito) Mussolini had that."

Col Gaddafi, who has been in power since a 1969 coup, responded with a discourse about the origins of the word democracy and said that in Libya people had their say because they can take part in local "people's congresses".

Another student challenged Col Gaddafi about Libya's human rights record, citing an Amnesty International report about the condition of foreigners in Libyan prisons and the right of immigrants turned back from Europe and held in Libya.

Col Gaddafi, who wore a white suit with a green silhouette of Africa over his heart and a gold cape, remained cool.

"I agree that the rights of men have to be respected and political refugees have to be protected but first we must know who are the political refugees," he said.

He said most of those trying to reach European shores, including many who have been turned back to Libya by Italy, were economic and not political refugees.

"Africans are starving, they are not political refugees. They are seeking food, they don't know about politics, let alone elections," Col Gaddafi said, speaking through translators.

Outside the lecture hall students protesting against Col Gaddafi's human rights record tried to stop him from getting in, hurling paint and scuffling with police.

The United Nations refugee agency has criticised the Rome government for its new policy of diverting migrants back to the Libyan coast. The practice began last month against a backdrop of a steady warming in ties with Libya and human rights groups have been critical of how the rejected immigrants, who come from a number of African countries, are treated in Libya.