Libyan woman bursts into media hotel to tell journalists about her rape by Khaddafi militia

A Libyan woman burst into a 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. 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.” 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. To read the whole New York Times story and view a Daily Telegraph video click on the title.