The recent incident involving Iman al-Obeidi – a female lawyer from Libya – being assaulted and dragged from the Rixos Al Nasr hotel in Tripoli shocked many people across the globe.
Various media reported that Iman al-Obeidi claimed to have been stopped at a Libyan checkpoint, held at gunpoint, was taken away to be raped by up to fifteen men over a period of two days, tied up, and urinated and defecated on.
She attempted to make her voice heard at the Rixos Al Nasr on Saturday March 26th 2011 by speaking with international journalists reporting from the hotel. Her attempts to convey her ordeal led to her being beaten and hauled away by Government minders and security forces, some of whom were found to be posing as members of staff at the venue. In the brawl that took place there, a number of international journalists were also assaulted, including the Financial Times’ Charles Clover, and Channel 4 News’ Jonathan Miller. See the following report from Euronews:
Understandably, the social media sphere in particular has been electric in its reaction to this. Harder to understand perhaps has been the response from Rixos Hotels. Posted on the company Facebook page the following day, the statement given was anything but electric:
Announcement:
Despite the tough and dangerous conditions faced in Tripoli, Libya, the hotel staff of Rixos Al Nasr return to their daily work duties voluntarily putting their own lives at great risk in order to provide the representatives of world media, residing in the Rixos Al Nasr, with adequate hotel services.
It is with great sadness that it was brought to our attention that the regrettable incident that occurred further to Mrs Iman’s El Obeydi’s visit to the hotel on 26th March 2011 involved few members of the hotel staff. Mrs El Obeydi arrived at the hotel, in order to share her horrific story with the international media.
We would like to assure everyone that notwithstanding the challenging circumstances, we are doing our utmost to review what has happened and take the necessary steps to exercise disciplinary action and prevent such incidents from re-occurring.
In the hope that peace and serenity return in Libya and its people.
Regards,
RIXOS HOTELS
The above statement had no humility, no sign of responsibility being taken, and is one of the poorest pieces of PR communication I have seen in some time. The hotel in question disgraced itself by allowing such gruesome treatment of Iman al-Obeidi and the journalists that tried to help her, and is facing an international reaction that even the best and most expensive marketing campaign will have difficulty turning round.
Ultimately though, the real issue here is not about public relations or zero-value statements. The real issue concerns a woman who paid a devastating price simply for being a woman, and who had to pay an even higher price for trying to tell her story. Rixos Al Nasr tried to act as an obstacle to that story.
It is now the responsibility of the international media to ensure that even though Iman al-Obeidi has been temporarily lost to Libyan Government control, the world must not lose the story she was trying to tell, nor the stories of the millions of women like her.
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