Clash breaks out as Libya braces for 'Day of Anger'

TRIPOLI - Dozens of people were injured in clashes in Benghazi, a hospital in the eastern city said Wednesday, as

Gathafi supporters chanted slogans against Al-Jazeera

Dozens of Libyans injured in clashes between anti-regime protestors and security forces, Gathafi supporters.

Libya braced for a "Day of Anger" following revolts in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia.

The director of Al-Jala hospital, Abdelkarim Gubeaili, said that 38 people were treated for light injuries.

Quryna newspaper said security forces and demonstrators clashed late on Tuesday in what it branded the work of "saboteurs" among a small group of protesters.

The security forces intervened to halt a confrontation between supporters of Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi, who has been in power for more than 40 years, and the demonstrators, said the paper close to Gathafi's son, Seif al-Islam.

The veteran leader is facing rare Internet calls for protests on Thursday by activists buoyed by the ouster of veteran strongmen on Libya's borders, in Egypt and Tunisia.

One of the Facebook groups calling for a "Day of Anger" in Libya and anti-regime protest that had 4,400 members on Monday more than doubled in number to 9,600 by Wednesday morning after the Benghazi unrest.

The European Union, meanwhile, urged Libyan authorities to allow "free expression" in the North African nation and listen to protesters.

The protest started as a sit-in by families of prisoners killed in a 1996 shooting in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison demanding the release of their lawyer, Fethi Tarbel, Libyan newspapers said.

Tarbel had been detained for having "spread rumours that the prison (in Tripoli) was on fire," according to Quryna, but was released after the demonstration.

But the crowd of protesters grew and they began chanting anti-regime slogans such as "The people will end the corruption" and "The blood of the martyrs will not be in vain," before police moved in to disperse them.

Police used force to disperse the crowd gathered outside a police post, it said, while the BBC quoted witnesses as saying stones were thrown at police who responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

Marchers later hurled Molotov cocktails in a downtown square, damaging cars, blocking the road and hurling rocks, Quryna said.

Soon afterwards, state television showed hundreds of demonstrators in the streets of Benghazi as well as Tripoli, Syrte and Sebha in support for Gathafi, who seized power in a 1969 coup which ousted a Western-backed monarchy.

Quryna said the unrest coincided with calls from exiled Libyan opposition figures living in the United States and Britain for "a campaign of incitement" against Tripoli broadcast on the American Arabic-language satellite Al-Hurra.

A website, Libya Al-Youm, also said the unrest prompted a show of strength by supporters of Gathafi in Benghazi and a number of other cities.

State television ran footage of pro-regime demonstrators on foot and in cars, waving Libyan flags and portraits of Gathafi. They chanted slogans against Arab news channel Al-Jazeera, accused by the regime of inciting unrest.

Thursday's protest has been called to commemorate the deaths of 14 protesters in 2006 in an Islamist rally in Benghazi.

Like protest movements elsewhere in the Middle East, dissidents have been using the Internet in a bid to rally support in a country where the media are tightly controlled by the state.

Under the banner "The February 17 Intifada (Uprising): A Day of Strikes in Libya," one Facebook group has called for a popular uprising.

Another group of nearly 8,000 members called for Libyans to take to the streets for a "Day of Anger against corruption and nepotism."

In a petition on Monday, more than 200 exiled Libyan opposition figures called for Gathafi's ouster and the right to hold peaceful demonstrations in the country.