British media widely reports the beating and sexual assault of CBS reporter Lara Logan during Tahrir Square demonstrations, while the New York Post cites anti-Jewish sentiment behind the attack.

After reporting the resignation of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from Tahrir Square on Friday evening, Lara Logan, CBS’s chief foreign correspondent, was separated from her crew, dragged away and subjected to a ‘brutal and sustained’ sexual assault by a mob of 200 anti-Mubarak protesters.

Since news of the assault emerged this week, the story has been widely covered across the British media. The spectre of an alleged anti-Jewish element behind the attack was raised by an article in the New York Post:

‘A network source told The Post that her attackers were screaming, “Jew! Jew!” during the assault. And the day before, Logan had told Esquire.com that Egyptian soldiers hassling her and her crew had accused them of “being Israeli spies.” Logan is not Jewish.’

In her interview with Esquire just days before her attack, Logan spoke of an anti-Israel element during an earlier arrest by the Egyptian authorities:

‘We were detained by the Egyptian army. Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It’s the regime that arrested us… We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything.’

While the assault was reported in The Guardian, The Independent,  The Telegraph, and on the BBC News website, The Times was the only broadsheet that mentioned the suspected anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli sentiment behind Logan’s assault :

‘There were suggestions that Logan’s attackers were motivated by anti-Semitism. One report claimed that her assailants had shouted “Jew! Jew!” as she was surrounded in the square on Friday. Logan, who is not Jewish, had said that in her earlier detainment she was accused of being an Israeli spy.’

As Just Journalism has previously reported, the alleged presence of anti-Israel sentiment fuelling attacks on foreign journalists has been noted on various occasions since the unrest in Egypt began. James Hider, The Times Middle East correspondent, gave an account of an attack on his crew during the protests:

‘They started saying we were spies… they [Egypt state television] are saying that all foreigners on the streets are Zionist spies, we are infiltrators, so they have created this atmosphere of absolute hysteria on the streets’.

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/us-media-reports-anti-jewish-elemen...

Submitted by andie531 on Thu, 2011-02-17 18:37

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