February 17, 2011: Author Explains Disparaging Tweets about Sexually Assaulted Reporter

Nir Rosen. [Source: Media Bistro]Author and columnist Nir Rosen explains what he meant to say in a burst of Twitter posts that forced him to resign from his position as a fellow at New York University’s Center on Law and Security (see February 11-16, 2011). Rosen made a series of comments, or tweets, that disparaged and mocked Lara Logan, a CBS reporter who was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptians celebrating the fall of the Mubarak regime. Rosen notes: “I undid a long career defending the weak and victims of injustice. There is no excuse for what I wrote. At the time, I did not know that the attack against Lara Logan was so severe, or included apparent sexual violence. Even so, any violence against anyone is wrong. I’ve apologized, lost my job, and humiliated myself and my family. But I, at least, don’t want to go down looking like a sexist pig. I am not. I am a staunch supporter of women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of the weak anywhere in the world.… I continue to apologize for this comment because it in no way reflects the way I feel about women or violence. Sexual assault is never funny, and it is a terrible crime. I have apologized to Ms. Logan and her family, and to victims of sexual violence everywhere.” Rosen says his posts were “disgusting comment[s] born from dark humor I have developed working in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Lebanon.” However, he continues, his tweets became a focus for “ideological opportunists who have used this ordeal for their personal gain. People whose words have helped create and justify war and genocide are now jumping onto this issue to attack me for my previous journalism (which, naturally, I stand by).” Rosen then makes what he calls “the point I really was trying to make. Had Logan been a non-white, non-famous journalist, this story would have never made it to the news. Ahmed Mahmoud, an Egyptian journalist, was killed in cold blood and nobody ever heard of him. Dozens of other women were harassed and nobody will ever know their names. Credible accounts indicate that the assaults on women took place largely on the Friday of the victory celebration, when millions of non-demonstrators joined the party. Countless women (Egyptian and foreign, journalists and others) have reported being harassed and assaulted in Tahrir Square that Friday, mostly, it seems, by non-revolutionaries.… So why all the focus on Logan? The US media did not care when Egyptian journalists (or any other Egyptian) were being jailed. Only when pretty white people showed up did Egypt really start to matter, and then, they were preoccupied with the scary Muslim Brotherhood possibly taking over, or what would happen to poor Israel now that there was a ‘threat’ of democracy in Egypt. This is why I wrote in a Twitter that I was already rolling my eyes. Even before we knew what happened to her, I knew how to anticipate the media response in the United States. So Logan and Anderson Cooper [a CNN reporter who was attacked by Egyptian protesters days before Logan was attacked] have become the story, instead of the thousands of Egyptians who have far more compelling stories. Meanwhile, I have not seen any condemnation of the pure hatred, racism, and vitriol that I’ve seen spewed all over the Internet in response to the Logan story. I’ve seen Arabs, Muslims, and Egyptians called animals and pigs in tens of websites and, right under the Logan stories, read vile rhetoric about them that would never be acceptable if used against any other group.” Rosen’s anger at Logan, whom he says supported the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, overcame his better judgment. However, “her destructive reporting has nothing to do with the crime she suffered, nothing at all. I point it out now only to explain my thinking, not to justify or defend the hurt I caused.” He asks why he is being vilified when others have called for the assassination of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (see (Early January 2011)) or the jailing of more journalists, and calls some of the criticism of his tweets “sanctimonious, [e]specially when they come from people who support every kind of American war (or Israeli war), tolerate racism against Arabs and Muslims, and—while focusing on the plight of celebrities—ignore outrages like our scorched-earth policies in Kandahar.” Rosen believes he was subjected to what he says was an undue level of criticism because he is “a leftist opponent of American wars… and I have a hard time taking a lot of the sanctimonious condemnation from right-wingers very seriously, given what right-wing pundits say on a daily basis.” He concludes: “I hope that one day people will believe me when I say that I did not mean it and that it does not reflect who I am. I hope that people will take time to read my work and understand that I have spent my career taking a lot of heat for defending victims of all kinds, not just Arabs and Muslims. And I hope Ms. Logan and other victims of sexual violence will one day forgive me for my terrible mistake.” [Salon, 2/17/2011]