TRIPOLI,
Libya — A Libyan woman burst into the hotel housing the foreign press in
Tripoli on Saturday morning in an attempt to tell journalists that she had been
raped and beaten by members of Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi’s militia. After struggling for nearly an hour to resist
removal by Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces, she was dragged away from the hotel
screaming.
“They say
that we are all Libyans and we are one people,” said the woman, who gave her
name as Eman al-Obeidy, barging in during breakfast at the hotel dining room.
“But look at what the Qaddafi men did to me.” She displayed a broad bruise on
her face, a large scar on her upper thigh, several narrow and deep scratch
marks lower on her leg, and marks from binding around her hands and feet.
She said she
had been raped by 15 men. “I was tied up, and they defecated and urinated on
me,” she said. “They violated my honor.”
She pleaded
for friends she said were still in custody. “They are still there, they are
still there,” she said. “As soon as I leave here, they are going to take me to
jail.”
For
the members of the foreign news media here at the invitation of the government
of Colonel Qaddafi — and largely confined to the Rixos Hotel except for official
outings — the episode was a reminder of the brutality of the Libyan
government and the presence of its security forces even among the hotel staff.
People in hotel uniforms, who just hours before had been serving coffee and
clearing plates, grabbed table knives and rushed to restrain the woman and to
hold back the journalists.
Ms. Obeidy
said she was a native of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi who had been stopped
by Qaddafi militia on the outskirts of Tripoli. After being held for about two
days, she said, she had managed to escape. Wearing a black robe, a veil and
slippers, she ran into the Rixos Hotel here, asking specifically to speak to
the news service Reuters and The New York Times. “There is no media coverage
outside,” she yelled at one point.
“They swore
at me and they filmed me. I was alone. There was whiskey. I was tied up,” she
told Michael Georgy of Reuters, who was able to speak with her briefly. “I am
not scared of anything. I will be locked up immediately after this.” She added:
“Look at my face. Look at my back.” Her other comments were captured by
television cameras.
A wild
scuffle began as journalists tried to interview, photograph and protect her.
Several journalists were punched, kicked and knocked down by the security
forces, working in tandem with people who until then had appeared to be hotel
staff members. Security officials destroyed a CNN video camera and seized a
device that a Financial Times reporter had used to record her testimony. A
plainclothes security officer pulled out a revolver.
Two members
of the hotel staff grabbed table knives to threaten Ms. Obeidy and the
journalists.
“Turn them
around, turn them around,” a waiter shouted, trying to block the foreign news
media from having access to Ms. Obeidy. A woman on the staff shouted: “Why are
you doing this? You are a traitor!” and briefly put a coat over Ms. Obeidy’s
head.
There was a
prolonged standoff behind the hotel as the security officials apparently
restrained themselves because of the presence of so many journalists, but Ms.
Obeidy was ultimately forced into a white car and taken away.
“Leave me
alone,” she shouted as one man tried to cover her mouth with his hand.
“They are
taking me to jail,” she yelled, trying to resist the security guards, according
to Reuters. “They are taking me to jail.”
Questioned
about her treatment, Khalid Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, promised that
she would be treated in accordance with the law.
After the
episode, Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said she appeared to be drunk
and mentally ill. He said that the authorities were investigating the case,
including the possibility that her reports of abuse were “fantasies.”
In a news
conference later on Saturday, Mr. Ibrahim said that Ms. Obeidy was in the
custody of Libyan police detectives who were treating her as a sane person with
a credible criminal case of abduction and rape. “It is a criminal case, not a
political case,” he said, promising that it would be investigated to the full
extent of the law and that she would have a chance to meet again with
journalists.
Charles
Clover of The Financial Times, who had put himself in the way of the security
forces trying to apprehend her, was put into a van and driven to the border
shortly afterward. He said that the night before, he had been told to leave
because of what Libyan government officials said were inaccuracies in his reports.
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Link
to Full Yahoo News Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110326/ap_on_re_af/af_libya_hotel_brawl
By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated
Press Hadeel
Al-shalchi, Associated Press
– March 26,
2011
LIBYAN WOMAN CLAIMS RAPE BY
SOLDIERS, IS DRAGGED AWAY
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