Libyan Woman Disappeared? (UPDATED)

Eman al-Obeidy 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 that seemed to come from binding around her hands and feet. (Jerome Delay/AP)

Some very disturbing footage and developments out of Tripoli this Saturday.

Warning: This is a very grim story and the footage is raw.

The New York Times reports that a Libyan woman is dragged off by government officials as she tries to tell journalists that she had been tied up, urinated and defecated on, and raped by 15 of Gaddafi’s men:

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.

[…]

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.”

The NYT Lede has raw footage up here.

Lisa Holland filed this report from Tripoli for Sky News (post continues after youtube):

The bruises and injuries the woman showed to journalists match up with her story of being bound up, beaten, and raped.

From what I can make of the following reporting from Wapo and Forbes, Charles Clover of the Financial Times, one of the journalists attacked as he tried to intervene/report, had his recording device taken away by Gaddafi’s henchmen before he was deported. A CNN camera was also confiscated and the cameraman found himself at gunpoint when he tried to take it back.

Washington Post:

“I was tied up. They defecated on me. They urinated on me. They violated my honor,” she said.

But as she spoke, hotel staff members, security guards and government minders closed in on her and began dragging her away. Journalists who tried to protect her were punched, and one, Charles Clover of the Financial Times, was knocked to the ground and kicked. Shortly afterward, Clover was deported after being informed at 2 a.m. that he would have to leave the country because the government didn’t like his reporting.

Two waitresses grabbed knives and screamed that the woman was a “traitor” to Gaddafi, and one threw a coat over her head in an effort to silence her. Government minders, who are assigned to supervise and supposedly protect journalists, snatched a CNN camera and smashed it, and one of them pulled a pistol when the cameraman tried to take it back.

Eventually the woman, screaming, “They are taking me to jail,” was hauled outside to an unmarked saloon car, which whisked her away at high speed.

Kiri Blakely/Forbes blog:

In the ensuing chaos, reporters were beaten off and threatened as they tried to protect the woman and get her story, and hotel staff suddenly began working in tandem with security staff to get the woman off the premises. A reporter for the Financial Times had his recording device, which had recorded the woman’s testimony, wrested from him.

As Kiri Blakely goes on to report, Gaddafi’s regime is accusing the woman of being drunk and delusional:

The story is tragic and horrible, and I fear for the woman’s life. Adding yet another horrific, and all too common, element to the tale is that the woman’s testimony of sexual and physical abuse, reportedly backed up by physical evidence, was then dismissed as “fantasies” by the Libyan government. The government went on to say that the woman appeared “drunk” and “mentally ill.”

I will try to update this post or do a follow-up as more information becomes available.

UPDATE — Apparently Libyan government officials, now under media scrutiny and facing questions of where al-Obeidy is and how she is being treated, have referred to this as a case of rape — a shift from the ‘drunk and delusional’ narrative being pushed by the government earlier. Via Al Jazeera:

At a hastily arranged press conference following the incident, Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said investigators had told him that the woman was drunk and possibly mentally challenged.

Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Tripoli, said: “The government initially suggested that she was drunk … but when they [officials] came back to the journalists later to reassure them that she was being well cared for … they did describe this as a case of rape.”

Also, more details on what al-Obeidy told reporters about the men from Gaddafi’s militia who attacked her:

Before she was dragged out of the hotel, al-Obeidi was able to tell journalists that she was detained by a number of troops at a Tripoli checkpoint on Wednesday.

She said they were drinking whiskey and handcuffed her and that 15 men later raped her.

Here’s the Al Jazeera report via youtube posted at the link: