Woman Claims She Was Raped by Libyan Troops

[Bob Hubbard]

TRIPOLI — A weeping Libyan woman made a desperate plea for help on Saturday, slipping into a Tripoli hotel full of foreign journalists to show bruises and scars she said had been inflicted on her by Moammar Gadhafi's militiamen.

"Look at what Gadhafi's militias did to me," Eman al-Obaidi screamed with tears in her eyes, pulling up her coat to show blood on her upper leg in the restaurant of the hotel.

After being intimidated by security men and hotel staff, who also beat journalists trying to interview her, she was eventually bundled into a car and driven away.

Woman Claims She Was Raped by Libyan Troops

Woman says Libyan forces raped her

Libyan woman says forces raped her

 

[Flea]

When I read this what floored me more than anything else was her courage. Anyone going through an ordeal like that could never be faulted for going home, cleaning up, and trying to pretend it never happened. But she didn't. She made the supreme sacrifice for herself, for her country, and for The Truth. She knew she'd be taking a one-way trip out of that hotel lobby after telling her story, and she stepped up and did it anyway. That's heroism.

 

[shesulsa]

I just saw the footage of this. Incredible. story.

Off she goes ... to prison, or worse. Wanna bet we won't ever find out what happens to her?

 

[granfire]

I just saw the footage of this. Incredible. story.

Off she goes ... to prison, or worse. Wanna bet we won't ever find out what happens to her?

Sadly I think she is either swimming with the fishes or her bones are bleaching in the desert sun by now.

 

[Flea]

I just hope for her sake that it happened quickly, or even already by now. She's been through enough. I hope she's richly rewarded with a plush reincarnation.

One thing I didn't get from these articles is why she was picked up in the first place. Was she one of the rebels, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

 

[MA-Caver]

The good scenario is that she was spirited away out of reach of any possible reprisals because women in that part of the world don't have it good.

Brave yes that she came forward and told her story. One would imagine that not too many women do in that part of the world because of how they're viewed and treated. I would imagine that Libyan women are no better off than Afghanistan, or Iranian or any other middle eastern Muslim country.

Still a long way to go.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The probability is that she was "disappeared" and subjected to far worse to teach her a lesson before being allowed to die, considering the heavy handed attempts to keep her from the media and claims of being 'drunk', and now 'not accessible'. Her fate will probably remain unknown unless she reappears after things there normalize.

 

[MA-Caver]

The probability is that she was "disappeared" and subjected to far worse to teach her a lesson before being allowed to die, considering the heavy handed attempts to keep her from the media and claims of being 'drunk', and now 'not accessible'. Her fate will probably remain unknown unless she reappears after things there normalize.

That is probably the worse case scenario...

It never made sense to me to torture a person to teach them a lesson ... and then... kill them. How is the lesson retained? If they plan on killing them... then just do it. The excuse "to teach them a lesson" is nothing more than a reason to satisfy their own sadistic desires. If you want a person to learn something then leave 'em alive.

 

[aedrasteia]

Caver said: "How is the lesson retained? If they plan on killing them... then just do it. The excuse "to teach them a lesson" is nothing more than a reason to satisfy their own sadistic desires. If you want a person to learn something then leave 'em alive."

Yes. And the word(s) people/individuals use to describe their actions to others (like teaching a lesson) are very often a screen for other motivations, which they must veil or deny to themselves and anyone else.

"Teaching a lesson" is the most common verbal cover for punishing children and other family members with physical/emotional abuse that I encounter every week. Its nearly impossible for the abusers (or any of us if we are honest) to admit they/we have even a drop of that toxic poison mix of cruelty, aggression and frustration. So its hidden behind socially tolerated words and phrases. And it so often excalates with hideous consequences.

On another thread, folks are commenting on Conflict Communications - this is from that website:

While it can escalate out of control, the goal of social violence is to adjust unacceptable behaviors. Killing or injuring is not the primary goal --MM​

Asocial violence does not see the victim as a person, but as a resource. Asocial violence is the domain of the predator and the humanity of his victim does not enter into the equation.



be well, A

 

[shesulsa]

That is probably the worse case scenario...

It never made sense to me to torture a person to teach them a lesson ... and then... kill them. How is the lesson retained? If they plan on killing them... then just do it. The excuse "to teach them a lesson" is nothing more than a reason to satisfy their own sadistic desires. If you want a person to learn something then leave 'em alive.

They aren't trying to teach HER the lesson ... they are trying to teach all other rape victims a lesson.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Lybian government says she was released.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/27/libya.beaten.woman/index.html?hpt=C1

A Libyan woman who stormed into a Tripoli hotel Saturday, telling foreign reporters that she had been raped by government troops, has been released, and her case is being investigated, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Sunday.

However....

CNN's Nic Robertson, who has been on the ground in Tripoli since February 27, cautioned against taking Ibrahim's statements as fact, noting that "oftentimes what he says doesn't match reality."

It remains to be seen if she will in fact turn up.

 

[granfire]

Considering the penalty for getting yourself raped over there....

 

[Bob Hubbard]

It's not much different that in some parts of the US unfortunately, considering some recent headlines.

 

[granfire]

It's not much different that in some parts of the US unfortunately, considering some recent headlines.

Yeah. It's shocking to funny, depending on the case, how similar people are under all those layers of culture...

 

[Flea]

They aren't trying to teach HER the lesson ... they are trying to teach all other rape victims a lesson.

It runs a lot deeper than that though - it's a collective punishment by association, much like the camps in Bosnia and current events in Congo. The true expediency of this act by Gaddafhi's men is that of intimidation. Not only to female rebels, but to any male rebel with a wife, a sister, a daughter ...

 

[shesulsa]

It runs a lot deeper than that though - it's a collective punishment by association, much like the camps in Bosnia and current events in Congo. The true expediency of this act by Gaddafhi's men is that of intimidation. Not only to female rebels, but to any male rebel with a wife, a sister, a daughter ...

Does one not wonder why the US, being the world's police, after all, does NOT take military action against such civil rights abuses as prolific raping of citizenry? Why are we not in Congo, rather Libya?

One must consider the words of John Lennon and Yoko Ono: "Woman is the N***** of the World."

 

[granfire]

Does one not wonder why the US, being the world's police, after all, does NOT take military action against such civil rights abuses as prolific raping of citizenry? Why are we not in Congo, rather Libya?

One must consider the words of John Lennon and Yoko Ono: "Woman is the N***** of the World."

yep, in the majority of cultures. And the other ones are feeling the pressure from all sides...

 

[Flea]

Does one not wonder why the US, being the world's police, after all, does NOT take military action against such civil rights abuses as prolific raping of citizenry? Why are we not in Congo, rather Libya?

Congo ----> Cobalt, copper, and diamonds.

Libya ----> Oil, strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea, the US' potential ticket to enhanced credibility in the Arab world after Iraq.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Largish update.

The mother of a woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell journalists that she had been beaten and raped by troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Monday that her daughter is still being held.

Her claim contradicts an earlier statement from the government, which has said that Eman al-Obeidy was released and is at home with her family.


"Yesterday, late at night at 3 a.m., they called me from Bab al Aziziya," Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli, al-Obeidy's mother told Al-Jazeera television Monday. "And they told me: Make your daughter Eman change her statement ... and we will release her immediately and whatever you ask for you will get, whether money, or a new apartment, or guaranteeing financial security for you and your children. But just tell Eman to change her statement."


A government spokesman said Sunday that al-Obeidy had been released and was with her family.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/28/libya.beaten.woman/index.html?hpt=T1

 

[Bruno@MT]

Congo ----> Cobalt, copper, and diamonds.

Libya ----> Oil, strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea, the US' potential ticket to enhanced credibility in the Arab world after Iraq.

Sad but true.
None of the big players would benefit from a stable African continent. Next thing you know those Africans will want market value for ores and minerals, instead of trading exclusive mining rights for a box of guns and a handful of grenades.

By the same token, the US does not want leadership of the current operation because they don't want the Saudis to start thinking of them as too much in support of the current wave of revolutions. And -according to a Belgian former secretary general of NATO- the US will outright veto any actions in Baghrein, no matter how bad things will get there. Because if the Baghrein government falls, then it would almost be certain that Saudi Arabia will be next. And unless the US does everything they can to prop up the Saudis, they will lose their one guaranteed ally in that region. And if the Saudis start trading oil for Euros instead of Dollars, then the dollar value will crash.

When he was asked how he would explain that to the Baghreini people, he was silent for a while, and then softly said that he couldn't. He answered sadly with the question 'how can you explain to the baghreini people that we will stand by and watch them be butchered when they know we went allout to protect the libyans in the exact same situation?...'

Politics is called the great game. Noone said it was nice or fair.
Libya is one of those rare occasions where the humanitarian motives are not held back by political motives.