Reporter recalls how she fought Gaddafi’s goons to try to rescue raped woman
April 3rd, 2011 - 12:42 pm ICT by ANILondon, April 3 (ANI): Sky News foreign affairs correspondent Lisa Holland has opened up how she fought Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen to try to protect a raped woman and how her efforts turned in vain.
“At first, I thought it was a suicide bomber. A screaming woman burst into a restaurant packed with Western journalists, her arms flailing. She was clearly in a heightened emotional state,” the Daily Mail quoted Holland, as saying.
“But it quickly became apparent she had come not to harm us but to plead for help. This was Iman al-Obeidi, the woman who wanted to tell the world she had been tortured and raped by Colonel Gaddafi’s henchmen,” she added.
Holland tried to calm al-Obeidi and talk to her, but the reaction of the government minders was shocking and deeply disturbing.
One threw himself on top of her shouting abuse and calling her a ‘dog’.
“I tried to pull the minder’s arm off her. The room descended into a mass brawl as minders rounded on journalists, smashing a TV camera. At one point a gun was pulled and our Sky News cameraman was punched in the face,” said Holland.
Even the waitresses showed their true colours. One threatened al-Obeidi with a table knife. Another tried to physically stifle her, grabbing a jacket and shoving it over her head like a bag.
al-Obeidi was then dragged off to a waiting car and she has not been seen since, according to Holland.
The now-famous footage of the scuffle provided a rare public glimpse of how the brutal regime reacts to dissent. (ANI)
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