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Friday 21 October 2011 World Gallery

Gaddafi: the writing on the wall

Scrawled six-feet high on the walls of the Tripoli Medina, the old city: the message that Libyans are no longer embarrassed to be Libyan. (Jonathan Miller)

The man who caused his country such embarrassment: the huge posters of his face now torn down, riddled with bullet holes and trodden underfoot. (Jonathan Miller)

Brilliant liberation street art has been appearing across Tripoli and other cities. (Jonathan Miller)

This painting, five-feet high on a wall in Soukh al-Jumaa district, Tripoli. (Jonathan Miller)

Gaddafi most often portrayed as a rat, a term which, back in February, he applied to his own people; here, caught in a rat-trap, he's on the run from 17th February spray. (Jonathan Miller)

An elderly artist found painting another Gaddafi-rat on a conveniently large white wall in eastern Tripoli, as city life began to get back to normal... minus the fear. (Jonathan Miller)

The painting of the murals drawing a crowd of local people, all savouring the moment. (Jonathan Miller)

Another Gaddafi-rat, accompanied by his mini-rat, Saif al-Islam. Now the jackboot's on the other foot. (Jonathan Miller)

Muammar, right, Saif looking Saif-like in the middle (many referred to him only with a raised index finger -

On a roundabout in central Tripoli, a wall of revolutionary graffiti that looks designed for a Hollywood set. (Jonathan Miller)

Detail:

Detail, freedom wall. No sign of shortages of red, black or green paint. (Jonathan Miller)

Graffiti, Soukh al-Jumaa, Tripoli. Tripolitanians delight in the fact that Gaddafi's on the run, but they tell you that no one will feel safe until he's caught. (Jonathan Miller)

Gaddafi has an encounter with the Grim Reaper. (Jonathan Miller)

Channel 4 News cameraman/editor Ray Queally. (Jonathan Miller)

Even in Tripoli's suburbs, artists have been at work. Here, a new claims the heritage of anti-colonial insurgent Omar Muchtar, hanged by the Italians 80 years ago. (Jonathan Miller)

Omar Muchtar, wrapped in the tricolour. Except this is Anthony Quinn, who played the Libyan insurgent in the 1981 film Lion of the Desert. Highly recommended viewing, by the way. (Jonathan Miller)

Reminiscent of the Ulster

The lion of the desert: crowned with the tricolour of King Idris, overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969. (Jonathan Miller)

Dracula-Gaddafi, Omar Muchtar Street, Tripoli. (Jonathan Miller)

A sponge-puppet of Gaddafi swings from a gibbet in a Tripoli district that rose up to confront the dictator in February, only to suffer a brutal crackdown and hundreds of arrests. (Jonathan Miller)

A handprint on a wall in central Tripoli: to me this just said

Photo 1/24 Scrawled six-feet high on the walls of the Tripoli Medina, the old city: the message that Libyans are no longer embarrassed to be Libyan. (Jonathan Miller)

Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller reports on the flourishing liberation street art that has sprung up since the removal of Muammar Gaddafi.