By Nina Kay Carroll

I have been waiting weeks to write the headline: “Eman al-Obeidy Finally Escapes Tripoli”. At last I am able to do just that. Eman al-Obeidy has fled Tripoli with two defecting military officers into Tunisia. In an interview with CNN, al-Obeidy showed how she wore traditional white dress that covered her face except for one eye to get through checkposts and border crossings. She said her rescuers used their military identification to avoid capture.

She fled to the city of Tunis and sought help from the French embassy and President Sarkozy who has promised her assistance. In a CNN AC360 update tonight, al-Obeidy has now traveled into Qatar where the government has also offered to protect and assist her with travel and safety. She left Tunis because she said she still feared Libyan operatives would come for her.

Eman al-Obeidy has become the face and the rallying point of the Libyan revolution after she burst into a hotel in Tripoli to tell reporters her story of gang rape, beatings and torture at the hands of Gaddafi loyalists that were close to his inner circle.  She told her harrowing story in the hotel lobby before Gaddafi thugs surrounded her and dragged away even in the midst of reporters physically struggling to protect her. That scene replayed on almost every media source immediately made her famous but brought her detainment for more than a week by Libyan police who tried to persuade her to change her story even offering her and her parents money and a house.

She refused to change her story and due to intense media pressure, she was taken to a home in Tripoli where she has been basically under something akin to house arrest for two months. In an interview with CNN’s Nic Robertson, she talked about how her case against the men who raped her was being ignored and the harassment by locals after Libyan State TV branded her as a prostitute. In the interview she told Robertson she cried all the time and she was not being allowed to leave to go home to her family.

She worried about her father who has been seriously ill and rumors circulated as recently as one week ago that her father had died. Fortunately, that rumor proved to be false. Her parents are both alive and told CNN they are very happy Eman is now safe but are worried about the prospects of her returning to Libya. They fear for her safety even if she returns to Benghazi, her hometown which has been a rebel stronghold almost since the beginning of the revolution.

Watching her in the interview tonight, it was clear that she has lost weight in the two months since her ordeal first came to international attention. The stress has clearly taken its toll but tonight she was smiling. She even laughed at one point and her eyes were bright, not red and swollen from crying and her demeanor relaxed. While she may still be in limbo as to her fate and that of Libya’s freedom fighters, tonight Eman al-Obeidy was happy. For all of the crimes Gaddafi and his men have committed against her, the trauma she has endured and the uncertainty of what is to come,  tonight I saw a strong woman with a captivating smile that refused to allow anyone to take that away from her. That is what makes Eman al-Obeidy my hero.