Woman Hauled Away After Trying To Tell Foreign Journalists About Her Rape and Torture By Gaddafi Officials

Copyright Sky News

This just came in over the e-mail transom:

A shocking scene occurred in Tripoli on Saturday when a gun was pointed at Sky News after a woman tried to tell foreign journalists about being raped and tortured by Libyan officials.

[…]

She claimed she had been held for two days, and that she had been raped and tortured.

The woman showed marks on her body which she said she had received as a result of beatings by the people who were holding her, Gaddafi supporters.

She showed marks on her legs and on her wrists, which she suggested came from handcuffs.

In a state of great distress, she said she had suffered this beating because she was from Benghazi, the city where the uprising began in the east of the country.

The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick, who differs with Sky in that he says she had nearly an hour to talk before being taken away, has more on her, including a name:

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 that seemed to come 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 physically restrain the woman and to hold back the journalists.

Anyone wanna bet the first thing Gaddafi’s people say about this woman is that she’s from Al Qaeda?

Murphy can has Congress?

Via DDay, Ian Murphy, who spoofed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, is running for Congress as a Green.

I’ve never supported a Green before. I’m seriously thinking about it. Left independents in Congress, like Bernie Sanders, have done more to keep the Democratic Party honest than any of the regulars.

The Kochtopus In Minnesota: Laura Brod, ALEC Stalwart

As you may have heard, the Wisconsin Republicans are trying to make life hell for a college professor who dared exercise his First Amendment rights. His subject: The influence of ALEC, the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, which crafted the templates for the anti-worker legislation being pushed nationwide by Republicans at the state level.

Who are the representatives of the Kochtopus in Minnesota? Hard to tell, as ALEC is a very secretive group that likes to fly under the radar. But Sally Jo Sorensen of Bluestem Prairie has a few clues:

Laura Brod is a past state chairman for ALEC; current state senator Gen Olson was her co-chair in 2010. (Current chair? Mary Kiffmeyer).

Want to set the Red Alert klaxons screaming at GOP Central? Dare to talk about ALEC.

Just as Professor Cronon’s ALEC phillipics have frightened the Wisconsin Republicans enough for them to try some really breathtakingly stupid intimidation and silencing tactics, Sally Jo Sorensen’s dissemination of the fact that Laura Brod, Gen Olson and the supremely nutty Mary Kiffmeyer are all prominent ALEC operatives has sent the Republicans into a Twitter frenzy. As Sorensen Tweeted in reply: “Love it when people spend hours insisting something isn’t important. Nice work if you can get it.”