Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt

I know this is on the "Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan..." thread, but I think it deserves its own. People flipped out when Anderson Cooper got slapped around, but this is horrifying.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/15/60minutes/main20032070.shtml

(CBSNews)

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 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.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

 

And of course, the NYP chimes in with all of its class:

Logan is now married to Joseph Burkett, a US government defense contractor from Texas whom she met while working in Iraq. The couple had a son in 2009.
Logan had been accused of stealing Burkett away from his wife in 2008 -- a charge she vehemently denied at the time, saying she only hooked up with him after his marriage ended.
At the time of her relationship with Burkett, Logan had just broken up with her then-boyfriend, CNN war reporter Michael Ware.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/egypt_reporter_lara_logan_endured_SMTA3WyAlqx8o02wYag41K

 

This is just horrifying.

 

Horrible, horrible story. My heart goes out to her.

Why did it take CBS this long to report this story?

 

Maybe they wanted her to get out of the country safely before making it public.

 

Fine. Then that means the should have reported the story Saturday.

Seems to me this incident puts a major chink in the whole "peaceful revolution" angle.

 

Absolutely horrible.

The bravery of the women who came to her rescue should be commended. Seems they had more courage than some of the men nearby.

 

I also feel badly for her producer(s).

Having been in the field with more than my share of talent, I know that producers feel personally responsible for their talent's well-being. I'm sure her crew feel sick, and feel like they let her down. At least any producer I know would feel that way.

 

This is beyond awful...I can't imagine what she, her family and her coworkers are going through.

But this also raised a question for me: Why would CBS release the fact that she was sexually assaulted? I mean, isn't it enough that she was horribly beaten? I assume CBS News doesn't ordinarily name the victims of sexual assault, so why do so in this case?

 

I have to assume she wanted it out there. No way they do it otherwise.

 

Agreed. In fact, I assume they waited this long to report it because they wanted to get her to agree to it. I don't know of many organizations that would ID a rape victim without her consent.