Iman al-Obeidi is overcome by security officials

It was just another breakfast time at Tripoli's smart Rixos Al Nasr hotel, sleepy foreign journalists helping themselves to cereals, rolls and terrible coffee in the restaurant, looking out over a neat garden unusual in the dour capital city.

But the Groundhog Day conversations - more overnight coalition air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, rebel advances in the east, how to escape the minders - were suddenly interrupted when a distraught woman burst in to describe how she had been repeatedly raped by government militiamen.


Iman al-Obeidi was quickly manhandled and arrested by security officials - an extraordinary spectacle for the journalists staying in the luxurious hotel-cum-media centre, hemmed in by severe restrictions on their movements and fed barely credible information.

The scene - filmed by several of those present - unfolded when Obeidi entered the Ocaliptus dining room and lifted up her abaya (dress) to show a slash and bruises on her right leg. "Look what Gaddafi's men have done to me," she screamed. "Look what they did, they violated my honour."

Distraught and weeping, she was surrounded by reporters and cameramen. Libyan minders pushed and lashed out at the journalists, one of them drawing a gun, another smashing a CNN camera. Two waitresses grabbed knives and threatened Obeidi, calling her "a traitor to Gaddafi".

Obeidi said she had been arrested at a checkpoint in the capital because she is from Benghazi, stronghold of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion in the east. "They swore at me and they filmed me. I was alone. There was whisky. I was tied up. They peed on me." She said she had been raped by 15 men and held for two days.

Charles Clover of the Financial Times, who tried to protect her, was pushed, thrown to the floor and kicked, and Channel 4 correspondent Jonathan Miller was punched.

Obeidi was frogmarched, struggling, into the lobby and driven away, shouting: "They say they are taking me to hospital but they are taking me to jail." Minders again tried to stop journalists taking pictures. It was impossible to verify her account. Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said he had been told Obeidi, apparently in her 30s, was drunk and suffered from "mental problems".

The incident made a powerful impression on journalists who have heard of, and occasionally seen, brutality but are subject to stringent controls to prevent them reporting independently and have a frustrating sense of being manipulated for crude propaganda purposes by the authorities.

"There was a desperate sense of our failure to prevent the thugs taking her away," C4's Miller said afterwards. "There was nothing more that we could have done as we were overtly threatened by considerable physical force."

An American TV cameraman said: "I think she probably was raped, otherwise I can't see her having the courage to put herself at such risk to let us know what the regime is doing. We see the fear in people all the time. But this is the most blatant example of the vicious way the regime treats the Libyan people."

It is clear from snatched conversations and anecdotal evidence that hundreds of Libyans have been detained in Tripoli, Zawiya and elsewhere since the uprising began five weeks ago, with many families still unaware of their whereabouts.

Libya's media strategy is to highlight the violent nature of the rebellion, insisting it is inspired by al-Qaida, and to emphasise that coalition air attacks - mandated by the UN to protect civilians - are causing civilian casualties. But foreign media have not been allowed to visit hospitals and have been escorted to only two sites hit in the last week.

The first was a naval base in central Tripoli, where there were no casualties. The second was a farm on the outskirts of nearby Tajura, damaged by fragments of what one expert said was a US-made Harm anti-radar missile, and where one person was slightly injured.

Visible military targets - such as a mobile radar station on the adjacent coastal road - appear to have been surgically destroyed.

Journalists have also been taken to see two mass funerals of purported victims of the attacks, where large crowds chant pro-Gaddafi slogans and slogans attacking what Libyans call the "colonialist-crusader aggression".

John Simpson, the BBC's foreign affairs editor, was warned by Libyan officials after questioning in a broadcast whether coffins seen at a funeral on Thursday contained the bodies of civilian victims. It is thought 18 air cadets were killed in an air strike on a Tajura military installation, the number corresponding to charred bodies shown to photographers in a hospital mortuary.

But no distinction has been made between civilian and military casualties. The government said on Thursday that "nearly 100" civilians had been killed. No names of the dead or injured have been published. The US and Britain say there are no confirmed civilian casualties.

"I am on a short leash because they really objected to my questioning whether the coffins we saw contained civilians," Simpson said. "All I said was that it was impossible to verify, but they took that as a great insult."

Other journalists have received anonymous threats. "I have read your stories and the penalty for carelessness is death," one American correspondent was warned by email.

The Rixos is in a secluded compound 20 minutes from the centre of Tripoli. Journalists who have managed to leave it or another hotel without minders are detained by police or turned back at roadblocks. Taxi drivers face arrest if caught picking up journalists.

Libyan officials insist journalists comply with the rules for their own safety but are evidently frustrated that their message is not getting across. "This is an extremely tense time," said Ibrahim. "Our soldiers are being killed. People in Libya are very angry, very bitter. They know the news from Ajdabiya. They know the coalition forces are not protecting civilians. They know the rebels came from Benghazi to Ajdabiya and that we are withdrawing. No one is investigating this."