Horror Story of Libyan woman

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Alleged Libyan rape victim Iman al-Obeidi breaks through to the international press - Yahoo! News

For the past week, journalists stationed in Libya's capital city, Tripoli, have pressed government officials for information on Iman al-Obeidi.
The 29-year-old Libyan woman made international headlines last weekend after she burst into a hotel housing the foreign press corps. Visibly bruised, she alleged that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by 15 members of strongman Muammar Gadhafi's armed forces. Libyan security then whisked her away from the battery of cameras and tape recorders.
After the widely publicized incident, Libyan officials kept mum about al-Obeidi's whereabouts, and the country's state-run media carried out an aggressive smear campaign painting her as a prostitute and madwoman. Her family, however, said that she was a post-graduate law student studying in Tripoli.
But al-Obeidi emerged from seclusion Monday to offer more public testimony about her alleged gang-rape and captivity.
"I showed to the journalists my hands and legs. I was bound and tied up. I was beaten and tortured," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper through a translator in an interview that aired in part on his Monday prime time show, according to a transcript the network provided to The Cutline. "For two days they violated my freedom ... I want to convey to the journalists that the brigades who are supposed to protect people, look what they did to me."
In addition to the Cooper interview, Obeidi recounted the story of her initial detention to NPR and a Libyan opposition satellite channel. Her ordeal began, she said, when soldiers stopped her taxi at a checkpoint in Tripoli.
Once she was detained, she said, the assaults began. "They had my hands tied behind me," she told Cooper, "and they had my legs tied, and they would hit my while I was tied, and bite me on my body, and they would pour alcohol in my eyes so that I would not be able to see, and they would sodomize me with their rifles, and they would not let us go to the bathroom. We were not allowed to eat or drink. This is because I resisted them and tried to stop them from raping me."
During her second imprisonment--after she burst into the hotel lobby full of journalists--al-Obeidi said that she was pressured to recant the rape claims on Libyan state television. She refused, she said, "because the TV station does not tell the truth."
Details of al-Obeidi's release remain sketchy. Her present location is unconfirmed, but she reportedly made a second attempt to speak with journalists at the hotel this past weekend and was again rebuffed.
"There is no safe place for me in Tripoli," she told Cooper. "All my phones are monitored. Even this phone I am speaking on right now is monitored and I am monitored. And yesterday, I was kidnapped by a car and they beat me in the street and then brought me here after they dragged me around. They told me whenever you leave the house we will do this to you, meaning that I was not allowed to leave the house or see the journalists. I had asked to see the journalists. They beat and hit me and sent me back. Tell all the human rights organizations to return me safely to my family."

 

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Journalists' killings 'go unpunished'...

Journalists' killings 'go unpunished' in 13 countries
1 June 2011 - After the murder of Luis Santiago of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's El Diario, the paper curtailed crime coverage

More than 251 journalists in 13 countries were killed "with impunity" in the past decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists has reported. Across the world, the unpunished murders lead to self-censorship and press silence, the group reported. The group singles out Iraq, Somalia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka as the worst environments for journalists The situation for journalists worsened in Mexico but improved in Russia in 2010, the group wrote in a new report.

"The targeted killing of journalists serves as a silencing message to others, ensuring that sensitive issues are not subjected to public scrutiny," Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement. "Many journalists who were murdered had been threatened beforehand but were left unprotected. Governments can either address anti-press violence or see murders continue and self-censorship spread."

The New York-based group's report was released the day after the body of Pakistani investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad was found; Mr Shahzad had written about al-Qaeda's infiltration of Pakistan's navy. In a report released on Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote that murders of local journalists constitute the majority of unsolved cases, and that corruption and dysfunction in law enforcement keep journalists' killers from being brought to justice.

The committee found the killings lead journalists to avoid sensitive topics, quit the profession or flee in order to avoid violence. In 2010 Russia's standing on the "impunity index" improved, as no journalists were murdered that year and authorities won two murder convictions. Mexico worsened for the third straight year when news photographer Luis Carlos Santiago, 21, of El Diario of Ciudad Juarez was shot dead in midday in a shopping centre parking lot.

More BBC News - Journalists' killings 'go unpunished' in 13 countries