Lara Logan Was Beaten and Sexually Assaulted in Egypt
Veteran CBS correspondent Lara Logan covered nearly all of the Egyptian revolution. On February 3, she was taken into custody for a day by the Egyptian police. But that wasn't her worst ordeal; a week later, she was sexually assaulted.
CBS has just released a statement reading in part:
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 amob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She wassurrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault andbeating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to herhotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the nextmorning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.
Awful. The fact that the network didn't announce this for four days—and the apparent haste with which the statement (all typos in the original) was composed—seem to indicate that someone was ready to break this story today.
The days of sending famous journalists out into crowds without a ring of bodyguards may be over. Get well soon, Lara.
[Photo via AP]