I don’t think so. I had horrible experiences traveling alone in Italy, of all places, and I dress very conservatively. The harassment was incessant. One time, taking a crowded train north to Germany at night, a vendor would not leave me alone. It bordered on assault, and left me in tears. People were laughing at the things he said to me in Italian. I could not move away because of my luggage. There was no conductor. I even punched him when he got too close to no avail. He persisted until he got off the train. I don’t understand how any civilized people could act this way. You would think someone would have stepped up to help when it was clear I was in distress. I think if this ever happened to me again, I would really try to be more physically aggressive but at the time it was hard to think clearly.
In the parks and streets of Rome, I’d constantly get approached by strange men.
I can imagine the harassment that women undergo in Egypt.
I have NEVER experienced such behavior anywhere else, not in the worst neighborhoods in the U.S. not in Germany, not in Austria nor elsewhere in Northern Europe.
Lara gave a chilling interview describing what happened when she and the crew were arrested last week. They expelled her from the country. She returned and then she was sexually & assaulted beaten last Friday. It does seem like an ominousness connection.
This article is a little weird. They mixed commentary with Lara’s statements.
I haven’t been raped (it’s been tried, but I fought off my attacker), but I have been beaten into unconsciousness. Several ribs were broken. It was a truly horrible experience that I still have the occasional nightmare about. Absolutely nothing sexual, but if I bring it up that it still bothers me sometimes it gets poo-poo’ed as "well, at least you weren’t raped" as if there could never be anything even on par with rape for causing terror and fear.
It depends on what happens, now doesn’t it? A beating that might leave someone permanently maimed might, in fact, be seen as worse by the victim than a rape that, while mentally traumatic, does not leave permanent physical damage. That is going to depend on the particular person involved.
I can honestly say that I want neither to happen to anyone, but while I assume rape is a terrible experience I don’t automatically assume that being beaten by a mob can’t be *equally *horrific and damaging to a person’s long term peace of mind.
Of course we don’t know exactly what happened. Honestly, exactly what happened isn’t really any of our business. Apparently she’ll not have any lasting physical harm from this, which is great. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t have to deal with mental trauma going forward.
I get the first sentence but I don’t understand how the rest of your paragraph supported it. My sister also had some negative things to say about Italy where she lived in Naples for three years.
While I admire her fearlessness, what was she thinking going back in there after what had happened before? Is it really worth a “story”, even one as big as this, to risk your life? From the sound of it, if the women and military hadn’t intervened, she would have been killed. Which brings up the question (and one that transcends gender): How important is it to have reporters “on the scene” in volatile situations? Yeah, it makes for more dramatic footage, but I’m pretty sure that she could have reported the same things from a relatively safe hotel room. I’m not blaming the victim here, please understand; I’m saying that there are necessary risks and unnecessary risks, and I think this was a case of the latter.
I find that discussions of what causes more pain are rarely productive and often times do little more than cause division. The point is that being assaulted caused you pain both physical and mental. Whether or not it is “better” than being raped it doesn’t change the fact that you were hurt and your pain should not be dismissed by anyone. I was assaulted once by three people and even though I managed to walk away with nary an injury it was mentally stressful and it took me a few weeks to get back to normal. I was constantly worried that they might recognize me at school or when I was walking home and try to finish what they started. During a heated argument with a good friend of mine he put his hand on me and I slugged him three times in the face as hard as I could. This wasn’t typical behavior on my part and it surprised and horrified me as much as it did my friend and everyone who witnessed it. I did apologize immediately and fortunately our friendship wasn’t really damaged as much as I thought it might have been.
Quite important. The reporters don’t just stand there reading a script in front of a camera; they’re also interviewing people, weighing evidence, and generally getting a sense of what’s going on from what they see. In the case of Cairo, if it was down to the words of the protestors that the guys doing the “counterprotesting” were off-duty policement, who would have believed them?
Sorry that was confusing. When I said “I don’t think so” I was referring to the statement that such a thing could happen anywhere, even the U.S. What I mean is that it is uncommon in certain countries, and common in others. I am lumping Italy in with Egypt as a category for where harassment is common. I don’t know why south seems to equal chauvinism, it is completely puzzling to me. Italy is a Catholic country and you’d think it has little in common with Egypt in terms of cultural attitudes towards women.
Hugely important. Often hugely dangerous, too, of course, but still hugely important for the quality of reporting. Real independent war reporters, for example, tend to have extremely low opinions of “embedded” journalism.
I’m sorry. People will probably go apeshit about this, but I feel it is a very important point.
Back when Gitmo was opened (and later other camps), many said that if you are seen treating people with such utter lack of respect (for example stress positions and blindfolding/hooding - hell, all sorts of sensory depravation went on at Gitmo) do not be surprised when it gets done to you.
And so, no, I am not surprised for one second that when arrested they were treated that way. You reap what you sow. Sucks for her, but it sucked for the innocents that the coalition forces arrested and subjected to such treatment as well.
And yes, being British I feel my own country is as much to blame.
I hope those of us who were opposed to Gitmo and the black sites are still allowed to be disgusted by what was done to these people. That said, and not to minimize the wrongness of any of it, let’s not bullshit ourselves and pretend this had anything to do with those sites. Mubarak’s government and its predecessors were torturing people for decades before Gitmo came along, and torturers have been doing this kind of stuff to their victims forever.