Monday 04 April 2011 The Libyan woman dragged from a hotel after she told journalists that Col Gaddafi's militia had repeatedly raped her was 'kidnapped' on Saturday but is thought to free again, writes Jonathan Rugman
Results for #EmanAlObeidi
Results for #EmanAlObeidi
v @thelede Live Update: Libyan Woman Who Claimed Rape Reportedly Under Duress http://nyti.ms/frBdgW #Libya |#EmanAlObeidi
#EmanAlObeidi tried to see journalsts yday. She told CNN’s Khalil Abdallah by phone she got as far as hotel before being detaind in taxi.
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#Emanalobeidi (in telephone interview); "I stand by everything I said. They are not going to initimidate me. My life is in danger."
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“@feb17libya: In Gaddafi's Libya, Eman has to be seen to believe she is still alive - Don't fall for anything less #EmanAlObeidi #Feb17SAD!
#EmanAlObeidi thought to have been "freed" but claims "I am a prisoner in Tripoli": http://bit.ly/dP4Mvk #Libya
In Gaddafi's Libya, Eman has to be seen to believe she is still alive - Don't fall for anything less #EmanAlObeidi #Libya #GaddafiCrimes
Tune into @AC360 for an interview I secured and helped produce with #EmanAlObeidi
Libya's government spokesman told Channel 4 Newsthat Eman al-Obeidi, the woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel on March 26, claiming she had been raped by men loyal to Colonel Gaddafi, has been released. Her family in Tobruk have not confirmed her wherabouts, though Ms Obeidi said in a telephone interview on Sunday that she had been freed.
"She was released several days ago and is at home", said government spokesman, Mousa Ibrahim, and Ms Obeidi appeared to confirm the development on a new Libyan opposition satellite television station. However, she added that she had been detained again on Saturday for several hours before being re-released on Sunday.
Speaking by telephone to the dissident "Libya" channel based in Qatar, she claimed that she had been beaten up and frequently harassed by plainclothes police and prevented from leaving the Libyan capital. "They beat me up badly in the street in front of everybody," she told the interviewer, "and then they said 'we are very sorry it was a case of mistaken identity'."
In another telephone interview on Monday, she said she is in a house in Tripoli but unable to leave city.
Had the media not taken interest in my case, I would have never seen daylight again -Eman al-Obeidi
Ms Obeidi said that after a meeting in the Attorney General's office, she had been "kidnapped" off the street by men with machine guns. "They took me around the city for hours before they left me at the Criminal Investigation Department, who released me later," she said.
"Every time I go out I find a car waiting to snatch me...there are armed gangs in civilian cars...and I think one day I will not be able to come back. I can't sleep at night. I am just waiting for them to come at any time."
"Had the media not taken interest in my case, I would have never seen daylight again."
"Every time I go out I find a car waiting to snatch me...there are armed gangs in civilian cars...and I think one day I will not be able to come back. I can't sleep at night. I am just waiting for them to come at any time."
"Had the media not taken interest in my case, I would have never seen daylight again."
A lawyer claiming to act for Ms Obeidi told foreign reporters in Tripoli last week that she did not wish to speak to the press because her case is before the courts, but a transcription of her interview suggests her rape allegations are not being seriously addressed, and she appealed to human rights organizations for help.
"My life is in danger," she said. "I want to go back to my family."
"Everywhere I go to state my case, they keep telling me the boss is not here," she said. "The Criminal Investigation Department said ‘it's not our business'. They keep saying there is no law and order, that their state is a state of chaos.
"I am insisting on my rights and I stand by everything I said . I will go back to the journalists if I need to do so. They are not going to frighten or intimidate me."
Ms Obeidi claimed she had been denied the right to join her family in Tobruk in rebel-held eastern Libya and that she could not cross the Tunisian or Egyptian borders either. "I am a prisoner in Tripoli," she said.
On 26 March, Ms Obeidi, a lawyer herself, was forcibly removed from a hotel full of foreign journalists after telling them she had been taken from a taxi at a checkpoint in the Libyan capital and then repeatedly raped. Her arms and legs were covered in scratches and she was filmed visibly in distress.
Scuffle
A scuffle between journalists and Government minders followed Ms Obeidi's appearance. Journalists were punched and kicked as they attempted to film the woman and interview her. One government minder pulled a gun while a hotel waitress brandished a table knife. The incident shed rare and very public light on how the Gaddafi regime will go to extreme lengths to clamp down on dissent.
At first, the government spokesman said Ms Obeidi may have been drunk and potentially delusional. Then he called her a prostitute and a thief, claiming that the men she accused of rape had brought charges against her for slandering their reputations. "She is not just the accuser, now she is the accused," Mr Ibrahim told Channel 4 News last Tuesday," adding that her own allegation of rape had been dismissed because she refused a medical examination.
Ms Obeidi has dismissed any suggestion that she was drunk or deranged. "When people go out to demonstrate they say they are taking hallucinogenic pills," she told the interviewer. "When people go out asking for freedom and dignity, they say they are drunk. And when I came out to ask for my rights, they said I was mentally retarded. I do not know how to respond to this regime."
She also claims that she did agree to a medical examination which she says proved that she had been raped, but that though the Attorney General's office had promised to arrest those held responsible "they have not done anything so far."
"During my entire arrest period, I was being asked one thing: To come out on state television and say that those who kidnapped me were not from Gaddafi's security forces, but from the revolutionaries and armed gangs. That was their only request and I kept refusing."
Ms Obeidi's mother, Aisha Ahmad, told Al Jazeera television that the family had been offered bribes if her daughter would change her story. "They called from Gaddafi's compound and asked me to convince my daughter to change what she said, and we will set her free immediately and you can take anything you and your children would ask for," she said last week. "I told my daughter, keep silent.
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RT @EANewsFeed: #Libya: #EmanalObeidi tells Free Libya TV of continued threat to her fm regime http://bit.ly/fbL5Xy #Feb17 | via @rupertbu
My take on the Eman Al Obeidi story, before most recent developments RT@MMWtweets: The symbol of #EmanalObeidi:http://ow.ly/4sGSG #Libya
#Emanalobeidi - RT @NicRobertsonCNN Says still in Tripoli & harassed whenever she leaves house--chased, detain… (cont)http://deck.ly/~FN9y4
#Emanalobeidi - RT @NicRobertsonCNN However she says it was more psychological torture than beatings. Says sh… (cont)http://deck.ly/~75k9V
RT @cnni: RT @NicRobertsonCNN: More about #EmanAlObeidion @AC360 with @andersoncooper tonight on CNN 0400 CET
#Emanalobeidi RT @NicRobertsonCNN Says after she was taken from this hotel, spent 3 days in detention & interr… (cont)http://deck.ly/~sLVnp
Alleged Libyan rape victim no longer in government custody-http://bit.ly/dJCfNA #cnn #Eman #EmanAlObeidi #Libya #CNN#AC360 #andersoncooper
V @jrug JR #Emanalobeidi - woman who burst in2 Tripoli hotel alleging rape - now released but confined to Libyan capital.http://ht.ly/4sNkC
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