The euphoria of the political change that has come about as a result of the protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square took a sinister turn on the 11th February 2011 for CBS news correspondent Lara Logan, who was covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square following Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. Finding herself cut off from her film crew by a 200 strong mob, she was attacked and sexually abused in shocking circumstances and to this day none of the crowd of men behind the incident have been held accountable.
The tragic incident marred an otherwise peaceful protest and highlights the need for much more than just political change in the former dictatorship. The two and a half week uprising may have been instrumental in getting rid of the Mubarak government, but the victory has been soured significantly as a result of the mob attack.
While it is said to have been a result of the addition of new revellers to the square on the night that Mubarak stepped down, it nonetheless highlights the need for a change in the perception of right and wrong with regards to sexual harassment. If in a throng of two hundred people, a single women can be attacked in such a way without the large majority of the people around her fighting to keep her safe, then there is surely a problem with the perception of this type of behaviour in Egypt.
The sad truth is that sexual harassment is a regular occurrence in Egypt and if the country is to step out of the darker days that it has existed in under Mubarak then the welfare of women and the respect that they are shown needs to be addressed seriously, as well as the other political issues that will surely be on the agenda for the new government.
The details of the assault are disturbing in the extreme, and it has been described as brutal and sustained and as such it is a genuine shock that it could have happened at the hands of a 200 strong mob. When that many men can all look upon a women in peril and not treat her with the same protection they would afford their own loved ones then there is a fundamental problem that needs to be tackled.
Egypt may well have a new future with the old regime well and truly ousted, but it’s clearly got a long way to go before it eradicates all of the wide-spread shadow.
