Lara Logan is opening up about being gang-raped in Cairo while reporting on the resignation of then-president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The journalist came forward with her story in an interview with Newsweek. Logan, who is speaking out about media bias, wanted to set the record straight after the ordeal was downplayed by reports in the months that followed.
"You can't have a #MeToo movement standing up for women and righting the wrongs of the past but say nothing about a female journalist who was gang-raped and almost died," Logan said. She then explained what happened that horrific day.
"People were celebrating. It seemed a pro-American crowd. Suddenly, our translator turned to me with a look of sheer terror and said, 'Run, run!'," Logan said. "I felt people grabbing between my legs. I was quite stunned. Our security, Ray Jackson, and the rest of us ran, and others in the crowd were running with us. I thought we were getting away, but some of the men running with us became my rapists."
Logan recalled Jackson telling her to hold onto him and to stay on her feet but it became increasingly difficult to do so amid the mayhem.
"If I was knocked down, I'd die. I fought the assault as best I could for 15 minutes, but they tore all my clothes off and raped me with their hands, with flagpoles and with sticks. They sodomized me over and over. They were fighting for my body. I couldn't hold on to Ray any longer."
Logan described how the group of men pulled clumps of her hair out and dragged her to an area where protesting women and children sat.
"I landed into the lap of a woman. I was naked and hysterical, and some boys stood between the men and this Egyptian woman. People threw clothing at me. It was amazing I could be so humiliated while so close to death," she said. In the chaos, someone wrapped a cloak around Logan and carried her to a Jeep, where her crew was. She was taken back to her hotel and sedated by a doctor, then flown back to the United States. She spent four days in the hospital.
Three years later, New York Magazine published an article, "Benghazi and the Bombshell," which described how Logan was "groped" during the incident in Cairo. Last year she filed a defamation lawsuit against the publication.
"When someone says I was merely groped, I don't forget. And I don't forgive," Logan said. There were numerous errors and biases in the article Logan said, but "nothing mattered more" to her than reducing "rape" to "grope."
New York Magazine declined to comment on the allegations when approached by Newsweek but said in a statement last year that the article "was thoroughly vetted and fact-checked, and we stand by our reporting."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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