Journalist Lara Logan Speaks Out About Her Violent Assault in Egypt’s Tahir Square

OMG how awful………….I’m glad she got away with her life. Amazing strength.

My heart goes out to this woman. I shudder to think of what she went through. She is incredibly brave. I have witnessed firsthand a brief look at the extent of the sexual harassment that goes on in Egypt. I am horrified yet in no way surprised that something like this happened in Egypt. This was not just an isolated occurrence but evidence of a cultural epidemic of disrespect and sexual violence against women, and especially foreigners.

I (22yr old female) traveled to Egypt with a friend (also 20 something female) during Ramadan last year, we expected a thrilling adventure in a romantic and historical land. We were completely unprepared for how we would be received. Traveling with tour guides we were mostly left alone, but to simply walk across the street from our hostel to get some water from the market was a frightening task. Men everywhere- hissing, honking, yelling dirty things at us, calling us prostitutes. Even some police officers joined in. We tried to have lunch at a restaurant and we were forcibly separated, felt up, and threatened by our waiters. At one point my friend and I asked a woman on the street (near tahir square) for directions to a bank. She pulled the neck line of my friend’s shirt open and looked down at her breasts. We went to the Sphinx with our tour guides, the guides stayed outside the gates and let us go into the tourist area alone. There we were approached by a young man who wanted to take pictures of us. He followed us around harassing us to let him take a picture of us, we finally gave in hoping to get rid of him. He used the opportunity to feel us up. Note: we wore tank tops (with scarves for modesty) because the heat was near 120 degrees that day and we were in the care of a licensed tour guide. I had been living in Morocco for a few months prior so I had some experience as a woman in a Muslim country; with this in mind I was careful to pack conservative clothes and modify my usually friendly, extroverted behavior as not to attract unwanted attention. I say this to point out that we were not doing anything out of the ordinary or dressing in a provocative way, though I feel this behavior by Egyptian men was unwarranted and wildly inappropriate regardless of any behavior or dress on our part.

I hope the recent media attention to the sexual harassment problem in Egypt will motivate Egyptians to make serious social changes. I commend Laura Logan for speaking out.

No surprise. Most Egyptian Muslim men and most Muslim men in general are just filth.