http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/mob-stripped-and-beat-tv-reporter-in-cairos-tahrir-square-it-has-emerged/story-e6frg6so-1226008941002
Mob stripped and beat TV reporter in Cairo's Tahrir Square, it has emerged Marie Colvin From: The Sunday Times February 20, 2011 1:06PM A US-based TV journalist attacked in Cairo's Tahrir Square was stripped and beaten with fists and the poles of hand-held flags, according to sources in America. Lara Logan, 39, a foreign correspondent on the CBS News show 60 Minutes, was recovering in private with her husband, Joseph Burkett, their son and her stepdaughter. According to one source, parts of her body were covered in red marks. They were originally thought to have been caused by bites but on examination proved to have been made by aggressive pinching. Security guards who had escorted her to the square were badly beaten. One suffered a broken hand. "Lara is getting better daily," said a friend in America. "The psychological trauma is as bad as, if not worse than, the physical injuries. She might talk about it at some time in the future, but not now." She was not answering emails. CBS News said Logan had suffered a "brutal and sustained sexual assault". The network said a mob of about 200 men had been "whipped into a frenzy" as she filmed a segment from Tahrir Square on the night Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, resigned. Within hours of the attack Logan was flown out of Cairo and spent five days in hospital in New York. Tahrir Square was the epicentre of the revolution and until that night had been safer than most of the rest of Cairo. Soldiers in tanks guarded the entrances, checking identity documents, and volunteers searched everyone who entered the square for weapons. Shortly after Mr Mubarak's resignation the atmosphere changed. The controls at the entrances disappeared and people who had never visited the square poured in, many of them aggressive and scornful of the political idealism of the protesters who had slept there round the clock. The South African-born Logan, her crew and a security detail appear to have been surrounded near a tent city that had sprung up in the square. The crowd fastened on to the petite blonde journalist and began jostling, shouting, and yelling "spy". In the melee Logan became separated from her crew and security. One source said soldiers went in to rescue them but Logan fell as they tried to escape. Sources in America said the attack went on for up to 30 minutes. Her clothes were torn off and the crowd hit her and beat her with poles during the assault. Shouts of "Israeli" enraged the crowd even more. Logan was finally rescued by about 20 soldiers and women in the square and taken to her hotel, the Four Seasons. The crew tried to find a woman to "treat her wounds",but then called the hotel doctor who treated her injuries and gave her a sedative. CBS has refused to release details and few in the network knew of the assault before it was announced last Tuesday night by Katie Couric, the network's star presenter. "I don't think anyone knows what happened in that square except Lara," said a source at CBS. More than 140 journalists have been attacked while they covered the revolution that erupted on January 25, sparked by a similar uprising in Tunisia and fuelled by the same grievances of poverty and political oppression. Few encountered the ferocity faced by Logan. It was doubly surprising because Tahrir Square had been a haven for women, who are routinely harassed in Egypt - groped or subjected to obscene catcalls. A survey in 2008 found that 98 per cent of foreign women visiting Egypt had been harassed. In Tahrir Square, however, the scene of daily demonstrations until Mubarak's resignation on February 11, women marvelled at the freedom they enjoyed from pests. Logan was attacked after 1am as she filmed a segment to go with a scheduled interview of Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who set up a Facebook page that helped inspire the revolution. She flew home before the interview took place. Xenophobia is likely to have been as much a factor as Logan's gender. Until Mr Mubarak was forced out, state media had been broadcasting and printing charges that foreigners were behind the uprising or were sending home images tarnishing Egypt's reputation. Several reports said Israeli spies were disguised as foreign journalists. Logan had already faced the hostility inspired by the regime. She and her team had been detained a week earlier and held in Alexandria, accused of being foreign agents or Israeli spies, then forced on to a plane the next day. "Our driver was beaten," she said in an interview at the time. "They blindfolded me, they kept us in stress positions - they wouldn't let me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted." Despite her traumatic experience, friends expect Logan to return to the Middle East. They said that she may have started as a swimwear model but colleagues' cynicism about her glamorous looks faded as she proved herself in war zones. Martin Frizell, a former colleague at GMTV, said: "There's a lot of chauvinism in TV news, particularly among war correspondents. But even though she happens to look like a model, she has bigger balls than most men." The Sunday Times Related Coverage a.. Frenzied assault on West's values The Daily Telegraph, 17 hours ago b.. Obama calls as reporter heads home Adelaide Now, 3 days ago c.. Sex attack on reporter in Cairo Courier Mail, 3 days ago d.. Women free TV reporter from violent mob The Daily Telegraph, 3 days ago e.. Mob attacks CBS journalist in Egypt Perth Now, 4 days ago [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: prole...@egroups.com Subscribe : proletar-subscr...@egroups.com Unsubscribe : proletar-unsubscr...@egroups.com List owner : proletar-ow...@egroups.com Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: proletar-dig...@yahoogroups.com proletar-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: proletar-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
