Lara Logan, who has reported from the war zones over the years, suffers unspeakable assault from a Cairo mob:
On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS Correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy.
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.
Reporting from Cairo has proven to be hazardous: CNN’s Anderson Cooper took hits to the head, and Fox’s Olaf Wiig and Greg Palkot were beaten, and now this.
Need a Muslim to chime in here: If she was raped by a mob, is she supposed to marry the mob now?
Unveiled, without a male relative — stone her to death!
I assume she was amongst the “moderates” celebrating when the assault occurred?
Everyone still hopeful about a warm relationship with America? Uh huh, didn’t think so.
Weatern woman are NOT safe in the middle east.
What in hell was CBS thinking? Are they so delusional that they believe their own b-s on the subject of Arab and Muslim mysogyny?
I have news for a whole generation of lotus eaters. Only here, inside the borders of this nation, are you safe enough to spin your fantasies about how the rest of the world works. Outside of this cocoon of the Rule of Law, you really are subject to assault, rape and murder by the locals because you aren’t one of them. That is especially true in a period of upheaval and anarchy, when even the tattered and thin covering of law and order that is the norm there is gone.
And why do I think CBS will do their best to bury this story because it does not fit their meme.
My heart goes out to this reporter. Many thanks to the women and soldiers who came to her aid.
History is repeated and repeated by the Musselmen…
The sad fact is, Journalism is not a safe profession. Many of us are beaten, jailed and killed every year simply for trying to do our job.
What’s sad is exactly what B Dubya just said, the liberal navel gazers simply can’t face reality. No female reporter should have been in that position, period.
That being said, my thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.
Patrick
Don’t blame the network. Suppose they had told her she couldn’t go? She’d've screamed! She’d've sued! It would be impossible to keep her out.
Can you see the court case? CBS asserts that all their BS about the religion of peace is BS and they know it. This is the basis of their defense?
I can only add that another Conservative has been born. Time for her to move to FoxNews.
What happened to her is reprehensible. My prayers go out to her.
That said, I have long wondered how it is that journalists believe they are somehow untouchable. It appears they see themselves as standing above the darkling plain of humanity where they report without bias the events taking place around the world. As others here have stated, these reporters and their bureaus live in a fantasy. There is no unbiased reporting. All observation – of anything – takes place from a perspective. In the case of these ‘journalists’ they are reporting from the perspective of Western society, most likely from the leftist’s point of view.
And just think Berkley wants to move all the Peaceful “Gitmo” Detainees right up next to the campus.. What could go wrong ? Im hoping the Dems in DC adopt or two each to take home with them to prove how safe and peaceful they are !!!
I’m disturbed by the knee-jerk attempts at humor represented by the first few comments here. Like others writing further down in this column, my heart goes out to this poor woman whose life will never be the same.
I know first-hand that women are not safe from assault on the streets of Cairo. As a tourist, I made the mistake of taking a short walk on my own near my hotel and was almost immediately set upon by a group of boys (couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13 years old) who gleefully groped, then walked away laughing.
It’s an ugly truth, this anti-woman attitude in traditional Arab culture (read Phyllis Chesler for the best reporting on this, as well as the more dangerous phenomenon of honor killing). Unless this changes somehow, Egypt’s nascent “democracy” will never equal what we think of democracy in the Western world.
Agreed #9 Sandy,
You’re absolutely right. Please gents, can you have compassion that extends beyond making a point?
Regarding women in danger, so too are males. Those reports bring no notice, and are not even reports they are so common, while sexually based crimes on males include impact to their private parts. One is difficult to survive mentally (rape of women). One is even harder to survive mentally (sexual injury of males), because the men are altered physically, tormented by helplessness, and feel no worth to the opposite sex or their families. Men take on a lot to stand up for what’s right in every country. So men and women, let’s stick together and be very compassionate for the survivors.
#8 Reply to DW Pepper – Right. I saw the Liberal Woman on Hannity she said she has an ‘extra room’ in her house for a Gitmo prisoner. Think about that for a minute…
#9 Sandy – They ‘don’t’ think of Democracy like we do in the West. Their ‘Democracy’ means Jobs, Education, Fair Wage and less shortages on supplies. Ousting dictators but, nothing more at this point. I have a feeling they are going to be reaping the “Be careful what you wish for” addage…
I am certainly appalled yet, not surprised. The Middle East treats women horrible. And the thing that kills me is that the Liberals in America support these people???
I only know of one bad episode in America such as this and it was in ‘Central Park, NY’ about 10 years ago. At a Puerto Rican Day Celebration. All was caught on video, young men were actually groping women (several on roller blades)as they tried to pass the crowd of them. Several women were knocked to the ground where the abuse continued almost tearing their clothes off. And not to my astonishment, no one in the crowd even helped them.
It was frightening to watch.
I could imagine the terror of the CBS reporter, Laura Logan. Perhaps she can now be a ‘sounding ‘ off point to the ignorant here in the US who ‘embrace’ the wisdom of the Muslim World and the ‘classy men’ of the Middle East.
I do hope she recovers fully. God Bless.
And what of the fools who sit in safety and push for women in combat?
I agree. While women and men are and should be equal, they are NOT the same. There are distinct biological and psychological differences. Two Words: Jessica Lynch
BTW, I am a woman. There are places I do not belong and frankly, places I don’t want to be. A predominantly Muslim country in the middle of a revolution is high on that list. Combat, especially in a Muslim nation where rape is regarded as a weapon of war, is higher.
The problem is not that she was a reporter, it’s that she was an American. The journalists were reviled and attacked in Egypt because of hatred toward Americans. The dictator they were trying to depose was placed there and supported by four American administrations. We have done this througout the Middle East, starting in the 1950s in Iran, when the CIA engineered the overthrow of a democratically-elected leader, Mossadegh, and replaced him with the Shah, whom the Iranians came to hate because of his repression and mistreatment of his people. The Iranians have hated us ever since. Even Saddam Hussein was our man originally. We prop up ME dictators bc they insure the flow of oil. Americans care much more about their inalienable right to drive their gas guzzlers with cheap gasoline than they do for human rights. We are beginning to reap what we have sown in the ME, and it’s gonna get worse, a LOT worse.
Harsh words but true. CIA has been a force for a lot of bad stuff for America. CIA is not just an organization. It’s also a collection of individuals. And many of those individuals have their own personal agendas. And they are extra easily corrupted since they have special privileges to keep what they do secret. Who watches the watchers? And since the CIA is not a military organisation and can hire anybody, they often lack the honor and discipline that comes from a military background.
The separation of OSS from the military into it’s own civilian agency in the National Security act in 1947 was a monumentally bad decision. And the world has been paying a hefty price for that ever since.
I have every sympathy for the woman journalist who was assaulted while covering events in Cairo, as well as Sandy, who mentioned her bad experience in Egypt at #9.
However, I’d like to interject a somewhat different experience that a colleague shared with me. About 15 years ago, she took a business trip to Cairo and spent some of her spare time looking around the city. She was alone, young and attractive. At one point, she told me that a young man came up to her and offered to show her his privates, claiming to be endowned with 25 cm (about 9 inches). She just giggled and declined his offer. She walked away without incident. The next day, she mentioned it to the people she was working with and they were furious on her behalf. They assured her that if he had done such a thing in their neighbourhood, they would have done some serious violence to him.
In other words, a man exposing himself to a woman in Egypt is clearly not encouraged let alone socially acceptable. I feel sure that groping and rape are similarly frowned upon in that culture. I would hate to see an entire country tarred with the brush of being sex offenders or defenders of sex offenders over the acts of a few individuals who are apparently beyond the pale even within their own countries.
Good points. However, regarding violence on the boy/man, he offered, which is no different than prostitutes on the street. We don’t do serious physical harm to them just because the offer something sexual.
There’s a too-high violence factor that is uncomfortable from people you’re defending to be together/cool/upstanding.
She probably watched too much CBS reporting and believed that Muslims are peaceful.