Egyptians Assault American Female Journalist

Feb. 22, 2011 - PRLog -- Numerous journalists were intimidated, beaten and threatened in the recent Egyptian demonstrations. However, on Feb 11th Lara Logan, 39, married  mother of one, a South African native and CBS 60 Minute News reporter received a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating when covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square.

Logan, who was a high profile presence among the Egyptians, with bright white clothing, tall clear-skinned and good looking, quickly became a target.

Her sexual assault took place amidst the greatest jubilation, a nightmare unfolding with the backdrop of thousands of distant people cheering. The assault lasted for up to half an hour, but was not believed to have included rape.

A hostile mob of around 200 men, who are believed to have deliberately targeted foreign reporters, had separated Logan from her film crew. Some Egyptian women and approximately 20 Egyptian soldiers rescued her.

Egypt is well known for its casual brutality toward its female citizens. Women’s groups call groping a national “cancer”. One 2008 study said 86% of Egyptian women — and 98% of foreign women — reported that they were regularly harassed, with around 62% of men admitting to doing it.

President Obama made a personal phone call to inquire and express his concern, as the White House called for Logan’s attackers to be brought to justice. Logan returned to the U.S. the day following the assault and spent 6 days in hospital recovering.

Prior to the assault Logan and her crew had been detained overnight by the Egyptian army and interrogated. Logan had been blindfolded and made to stay upright. They finally gave her intravenous fluids and released her and her crew and deported them back to New York. They had been accused of being Israeli spies.

Logan was an experienced reporter, being employed by CBS as chief foreign correspondent in 2006. She gained entry into Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 and then became an imbedded journalist in Iraq.

An American writer on current and international affairs and academic, Nir Rosen, quickly criticized Logan, whom he called a ‘major warmonger’.

“I apologize for being insensitive, it's always wrong, that's obvious, but I'm rolling my eyes at all the attention she will get,” was Rosen’s first attempt at an apology. However, Rosen’s comments only added fuel to the very thing he objected to – publicity for Logan.

“As someone who's devoted his career to defending victims and supporting justice, I'm very ashamed for my insensitive and offensive comments,” he wrote in a more sincere apology.

Rosen was in Afghanistan and Iraq around the same time as Logan. He has since resigned his post as a teacher at the New York University.

Rosen however, is not on his own in posting offensive comments about Logan. Message-boards across America have sparked a brutal debate about whether an 'attractive blonde woman' should have even been reporting in Egypt in the first place. The debate became so ugly on NPR that moderator Mark Memmott was forced to remove dozens of comments and repeat their stand on offensive message-posting.

There is also the question as to why CBS kept this incident out of the news, until another media outlet threatened to release it?

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