The Whore of Tripoli

For a third time, 29 year old Iman al-Obeidi, a post-graduate law student in Tripoli, broke away from her Libyan captors to tell her story of kidnapping, gang rape, beating and house arrest by 15 members of strongman Muammar Gadhafi's armed forces.

Journalists from around the world, stationed near Tripoli, have been pressing the government for information about Ms. al-Obeidi since she first burst into the hotel press room last week, visibly bruised, alleging that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted.

It was reported that, "A wild scuffle began as journalists tried to interview, photograph and protect her," according to David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times.

"Several journalists were punched, kicked and knocked down by the security forces, working in tandem with people who until then had appeared to be hotel staff members. Security officials destroyed a CNN video camera and seized a device that a Financial Times reporter had used to record her testimony."

According to Kirkpatrick's NY Times story, the Ms. al-Obeidi reported:

“They say that we are all Libyans and we are one people . . . 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 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.”

"Libyan state television is reporting on her, painting her as a traitor and a prostitute," CNN's Anderson Cooper said on his show Wednesday night. He then played a clip, which you can watch below, of a female state broadcaster smearing al-Obeidi on the air.

"With all due respect to whores, even a whore may have some sense of patriotism," the anchor said, per Cooper's translation. "Even a whore will have a sense of patriotism when it comes to her homeland, Libya. But sister Eman has a political hate agenda. She is extremely radical." Al-Obeidi is said, in reality, to be a post-graduate law student who has been studying in Tripoli.

The government claims it has released her into her family's custody--but family members deny this and say they rejected a bribe to have al-Obeidi recant the rape allegations.

Foreign reporters are still trying to get reliable word on al-Obeidi's whereabouts, and pressing Muammar Gadhafi's regime for details. Aside from CNN, reporters from the New York Times, the Financial Times, Reuters and other news outlets on the ground in Tripoli, have helped cast a spotlight on al-Obeidi's case.

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.

Ms. al-Obeidi emerged from seclusion a third time on Monday, this time successfully, to offer more public testimony with CNN's Anderson Cooper about her alleged gang-rape and captivity.

"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."

Along with most of the rest of the world, I am horrified and sickened by the ordeal this woman has had to endure in the name of freedom.

It is even more horrifying to consider that she is not the only one. Indeed, Ms. Obeidi has been pleading not only for herself but for some of her friends who are still imprisoned, still being beaten and tortured and sexually assaulted.

The most horrifying part of this horrible news story is that it is not news. It is as old as time. The "original sin" of The Garden is the inherent misogyny embedded in the story of the "natural order," ordained by God, of Adam's domination over Eve and all of creation.

Do you really suppose, as we have been told for centuries, that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute? It may make for a good story about the salvific, unconditional love of Jesus - that he even "loved the sinner" like her - but I suspect it's far from the truth.

Uppity women - women who have risked and dared to talk truth to power - have always been labeled whores and prostitutes by those who fear the truth that women have to tell.

Was Magdalene not the first one ever to tell the truth of the story of the resurrection of Jesus? And, was her story not dismissed by the disciples as unbelievable?

Ironically, Ms. al-Obeidi is, perhaps, the true patriot in this turbulent story of Libya's struggle for freedom. She gets it.

"They say that we are all Libyans and we are one people," she cried out to the journalists of the foreign press, "but look at what the Qaddafi men did to me.”

Yes, look what was done to her!

As difficult as it is to consider, we must not look away.

The image of Ms. al-Obeidi, the alleged 'Whore of Tripoli' is one of a true patriot - moving past her own personal pain and humiliation (Qaddafi's men not only allegedly raped but urinated and defecated on her!) - to help other women while calling her nation to examine the foundations of the justice and freedom they allegedly stand for and are risking their lives to attain.

Here's the most important lesson about freedom: "No one is free unless all are free".

Not me. Not you. Not those Qaddafi thugs with guns who think they are in power.

One report notes:

Al-Obeidi has come forward with her story at a critical juncture in the efforts of Gadhafi's regime to clamp down on the work of the foreign media. Journalists working out of Tripoli say they are contending with tightly monitored and almost surreal working conditions. Some even fear that their hotel-prepared food is being spiked with sedatives, according to NPR.

"That was why the outburst of Iman al-Obaidi ... was so revelatory," writes Liz Sly in The Washington Post. "In an instant, she crystallized the harsh realities of the Libya the government goes to such lengths to prevent journalists from seeing."

It's also possible that the widespread media exposure saved al-Obeidi's life.

The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick, who is on the ground in Tripoli, notes: "Thanks to the publicity in her first interviews ... she may have gotten off easy. Others in her situation, human rights advocates say, are typically confined for years in so-called rehabilitation facilities, subjected to unscientific virginity tests, deprived of any entertainment or education except lessons in Islam, and subjected to solitary confinement or handcuffs for any sign of resistance to authority."

As for al-Obeidi, she told Cooper she has constant nightmares of death and wishes to leave Tripoli, but is no longer afraid.

The passion for, the vision of, freedom - true freedom - is one that overcomes fear.

The impulse for freedom - true freedom - has its own nobility and an altruism which propels one past one's own suffering to take risks to ensure that others might be free.

The dream of freedom - true freedom - is what is keeping Iman al-Obeidi alive and bold and brave.

She only looks like a madwoman to those who are threatened by her passion, vision, impulse for and dream of freedom for everyone.

She only looks like a whore to those who try to hoard things they can never possess.

This is the ancient truth we rediscover today from The Whore of Tripoli.

No one is free unless all are free.

Not you. Not me.

Ever.