Beyond Surreal
The latest from Tripoli about Iman Al-Obeidi:
The Libyan woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell western reporters she had been raped by Muammar Gaddafi’s militiamen is now facing criminal charges herself, a government spokesman said. Mussa Ibrahim said charges had been brought against her by some of the militiamen she had accused. “It’s a legal case,” Ibrahim told reporters. “The boys she accused of rape are making a case against her because it’s a grave offence to accuse someone of a sexual crime.”
(H/T: Mellbell)
[The Guardian]
Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.
The real horror here is that you know she is just the tip of the iceberg. You have to put a multiplier on her – (Iman times ten? Iman times one hundred? Iman times one thousand?). It is only because of her unimaginable bravery to run into a room full of Western journalists and demand her story be heard with the consequent/accidental production of compelling video that her story is being faced squarely. If it was two lines of text in an NYT article “woman claims to be gang raped by Khadaffi guards at checkpoint” it does not even make the evening news. How many stories have we read about the thousands of rapes under military/gang occupations in Somalia, Rawanda, Darfur, Bosnia on and on?
I don”t hold out much hope for Iman al-Obeidi. The only thing to cling to is – ironically – stories like this post. If the regime feels the need to concoct insane rationalizations like this, it at least shows an awareness that she has the world’s attention and an apparent unwillingness/fear to treat her with complete impunity. Her best hope right now is with Anderson Cooper (who has kept a large percentage of CNN airtime on her plight), and – I suspect – Hillary Clinton. I just get the feeling that Hillz is off the reservation on this -not waiting but setting policy – and making it perfectly clear under the diplomatic radar what happens to Qoadaff and sons (yes – I am spelling it differently every time) if Iman disappears.
Pretty much what you’d expect from an autocratic, dictatorial regime… actually I’m surprised she wasn’t just “dissappeard.”
NOJO • The Reckoning Four years later: Uhhh, how’d that work out?
JNOV • Hanging by a Thread @nojo: yeah. I had a feeling you’d say that.
NOJO • Hanging by a Thread @JNOV: Haven’t touched a thing — checked it the other day, worked from here. But that’s my…
JNOV • Hanging by a Thread Oh! My edits worked! Praise nojo!
JNOV • Hanging by a Thread Glad you’re feeling sunny. I have my moments which are then squashed by some shitheads’…
NOJO • Hanging by a Thread @nojo: The Long View: 1972: Nixon 61% 1984: Reagan 59% 2004: Bush 51% 2024: Trump 50%…
NOJO • Hanging by a Thread Power is power, but… About 11 million votes remain to be counted. Nate Silver (I know, I know)…
JNOV • The Values We Profess Yeah. So. When my kid came back from basically getting frog-marched from a store downtown (the…
JNOV • The Values We Profess @nojo: We love you! I was thinking, even though we don't truly celebrate x-mas, some people in…
NOJO • The Values We Profess @nojo: Also, I love saying stuff like “heading uptown”. Brooklyn is fun!