(Lara Logan) CBS Reporter Recounts ‘Merciless’ Assault in Egypt

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Lara Logan thought she was going to die in Tahrir Square when she was sexually assaulted by a mob on the night that Hosni Mubarak’s government fell in Cairo.

Ms. Logan, a CBS News correspondent, was in the square preparing a report for “60 Minutes” on Feb. 11 when the celebratory mood suddenly turned threatening. She was ripped away from her producer and bodyguard by a group of men who tore at her clothes and groped and beat her body. “For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands,” Ms. Logan said in an interview with The New York Times. She estimated that the attack lasted for about 40 minutes and involved 200 to 300 men.

Ms. Logan, who returned to work this month, is expected to speak at length about the assault on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday night.

Her experience in Cairo underscored the fact that female journalists often face a different kind of violence. While other forms of physical violence affecting journalists are widely covered — the traumatic brain injury suffered by the ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff in Iraq in 2006 was a front-page story at that time — sexual threats against women are rarely talked about within journalistic circles or in the news media.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/business/media/29logan.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[freshwest]

1. Thanks for the follow up. I won't be tuning in, though. I'm sure the RWers will love it.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. one of Hannity's pals described the assault as 'heartwarming'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x426511

[progressoid]

6. Wow, that's...

ugh. I'm speechless.

[qanda]

2. I'm not sure how she is able to talk about it

But I wish her healing and wholeness. Sexual abuse is not easy to deal with.

[Snoutport]

3. poor girl

[Honeycombe8]

4. It's true that this story hasn't been covered like the ones involving other kinds of violence.

Even in this forum, there wasn't much response. Possibly because it was the revolutionaries who did it.

Ironically, I'd done a post, pointing out that women and children, esp female children, should lock themselves up and be careful. History has shown that any time there is anarchy and groups of angry, armed men running the streets, for whatever cause, women are often the targets of rape and other violence.

But maybe the major news networks didn't want to over-cover it, out of sensitivity for the victim, who was, after all, one of their own. I hope that was the reason.

I don't know how she could talk about it. I think I'd be permanently traumatized by such a thing. But being a news person, and one who puts herself in dangerous situations to report the news, she is probably tougher than I am and a lot of other women. (I don't mean to imply that she shouldn't put herself in dangerous situations. I don't think that at all. That's a news person's job.)

I guess that means she's recovering and maybe had therapy. I hope that's what that means. My heart is with her.