Lara Logan, ’60 Minutes’ correspondent, suffers ‘sustained’ sex assault by Egypt mob: CBS News
BY RICHARD HUFF AND HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
From nydailynews.com
Intrepid "60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan endured a "brutal and sustained" sexual assault by a mob of men while covering the Egyptian uprising, CBS News said.
It happened Friday during the wild jubilation in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down. The world watched the joyous celebrations on TV, unaware there was a darkness brewing there, too.
"A dangerous element" in the crowd surrounded Logan and her crew, CBS News said in a statement.
"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."
Logan, 39, went home to Washington on the first flight Saturday and was hospitalized.
"We’re pleased to report she’s recovering well," Katie Couric said during Tuesday night’s broadcast of the "CBS Evening News."
Logan was expected to be released and go home to her husband and 2-year-old son Tuesday night.
Just a week before, the Emmy-winning war reporter survived a harrowing night of being held – blindfolded and forced into a "stress position" – by Egyptian security forces. That day, Feb. 2, many foreign journalists were attacked by Mubarak supporters.
"I’d been ill for a few days – I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone at CBS," she told Esquire magazine last week. "I vomited all over the interrogation cell. I vomited all over this office they put me in after that."
Logan was kicked out of the country and she spent the next week struggling to get back, landing back in Cairo on Friday – the day she was attacked. In an appearance on the "Charlie Rose Show" on Feb. 7, she explained why she was trying so hard to go back to Egypt, despite the danger.
"It’s very hard for me to be away from this story," she said. "I feel like I failed because I didn’t deliver. "Fundamentally it’s in my blood to be there and to be on the street and listening to people and to do the best reporting that I can."
At least 140 reporters have been injured or killed covering Egypt since Jan. 30, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Fox News Channel’s Greg Palkot, who was badly beaten in Egypt on Feb. 2, continues to recover from his injuries and has not been on the air since the attack. Logan is a fearless foreign correspondent who has reported from some of the world’s most dangerous places.
Her colleagues reacted with a flurry of horrified messages on Twitter-
"Sickened and saddened by the attack on Lara Logan. She is in all of our thoughts and prayers," said CNN’s Anderson Cooper, another reporter beaten Feb. 2.
"Horrified by dreadful attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan – wishing her full and speedy recovery," CNN’s Piers Morgan said.
Logan is on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and has raised money for injured reporters.
"We have seen Lara’s compassion at work while helping journalists who have faced brutal aggression while doing their jobs," said CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger.
Few statistics exist about sexual assaults on female correspondents in combat zones, in part because so many are loath to report attacks for fear of losing their beat. A 2005 survey by the International News Safety Institute in Brussels was sent to 150 female foreign correspondents – only 29 replied. Of the 29, half reported sexual harassment on the job and two had experienced sexual abuse.
hkennedy@nydailynews.com
Lara used to get shit cause she was too good looking and it helped her career, it may have, but she was hurt in an attack in either Afghanistan or Iraq a couple of years ago…her cameraman may have been killed or very seriously wounded. This is a brave woman. This is what gets me about certain reporters/anchors who never get out of the studio…like Keith Olbermann, though in his case he is close to legally blind. When Aaron Brown was with CNN, he never got off his ass to go to New Orleans, its said he didnt want to. I rarely see the Fox nitwits go anywhere…though Glenn Beck would be dumb enough to go to Egypt and get himself killed.
It was a very dangerous place for a young pretty woman to be in at the time. She should not have been there in the middle of hundreds of angry and excited young men. Caring about her job and reporting the news is commendable but being there was foolhardy. Thank god some women and Egyptian soldiers stepped in to stop it before she was killed.
Them bastards should be castrated but most likely they will never be caught. Just a sad story all the way around.
I’ve read and heard she was raped, not just assaulted.
She was slightly wounded in 2005 in Afghanistan while with US Soldiers when the vehicle she was in hit a mine, two of the soldiers were seriously hurt. Her personal life isnt very neat and she’s had some controversies with her work. Still, she’s a tough broad.
I wish the real Luke could go out there and cover it… ask Egyptians what they think of internet porn.
Egyptians LOVE internet porn. Seriously, there is a desperate need for Arab (or Muslim) female talent but its dangerous as fuck.
What’s her name–who lost like 300 pounds–should have her website in Arabic–and keep her original hair color…
Muslim porn is an arab sin. However in Allah’s heaven a good muslim gets 77 virgins for all eternity… still no filming allowed.