By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Friday, February 04, 2011

World leaders and rights activists Thursday condemned a “concerted campaign” of intimidation against journalists covering the unrest in Egypt, as news media reported a string of assaults and arrests.

Other foreign leaders and rights activists also denounced the attacks and harassment and one French media executive accused Egyptian state television of inciting “lynching.”
Earlier, the Egyptian military rounded up journalists, possibly for their own protection.

An Associated Press reporter saw eight foreign journalists detained by the military near the prime minister’s office, not far from Tahrir Square.

“There is a concerted campaign to intimidate international journalists in Cairo and interfere with their reporting,” said State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley on Twitter. “We condemn such actions,” he added.

The leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain said in a joint statement that the “attacks against journalists are completely unacceptable.”

Correspondents, photographers and film crew reporting on the fierce clashes that took place in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square said that alleged supporters of embattled President Hosni Mubarak had turned on them Wednesday and Thursday.

From New York, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists also said the attacks were a deliberate policy of the Mubarak administration.

Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders denounced the “shocking” attacks.
Al-Jazeera said pro-Mubarak demonstrators chased away one of its correspondents, calling him “a Jew” and “a dog.”

Al-Arabiya news channel said its correspondent Ahmad Abdullah had been severely beaten by Mubarak supporters, while Belgian daily Le Soir said its reporter Serge Dumont had been beaten up and then arrested.

Some journalists described being arrested by police and having their equipment confiscated or destroyed.
“Egyptian state television has referred to foreign journalists as being responsible for what is happening,” said Thierry Thuillier, head of news at France Televisions.

“It’s a kind of undisguised incitement to lynching,” he said.
“They are inconvenient witnesses, we are seeing a systematic assault on foreign journalists.”

BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reported that Egyptian secret police had handcuffed, blindfolded and interrogated him for three hours before releasing him.

CNN star correspondent Anderson Cooper reported how he and his camera crew were attacked by Mubarak supporters just outside Cairo’s central Tahrir Square.

Police arrested three Polish journalists covering the unrest, Polish Television TVP reported. Two others with the station were briefly detained before being released Thursday, and one said they had been accosted by a mob in central Cairo. Police had destroyed his camera, he added.

Three journalists with France’s BFM TV suffered a 15-minute beating from attackers using fists, boots and clubs, said the channel chief Guillaume Dubois.
They were eventually rescued by a passing army convoy, he added.

Russian’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday its diplomats had tracked down two correspondents for the Zvezda television station at a military counter-espionage center.

“They had been arrested for breaking the curfew and for having filmed public places without the necessary authorization,” said a ministry statement.

A reporter and a photographer for Greek daily Kathimerini were injured in Wednesday’s violence, a Greek government official said Thursday.

Egyptian soldiers took reporter Petros Papaconstantinou to hospital for treatment after he was attacked, but he had since checked himself out.
He later told the ANA news agency he had been beaten with golf clubs after he said he was Greek, and his camera and two recorders stolen.

“AP journalists in Egypt have faced the same harassment and intimidation as other news organizations,” said the U.S. news agency’s spokesman Paul Colford. “One AP location was disrupted today by stick-wielding thugs and satellite equipment was taken. The situation was quickly defused. No one was injured.”

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said Mubarak supporters Thursday “severely” beat Metin Turan, a journalist for the public TRT broadcaster, and took his money, video camera, camera and mobile phone.
Turan managed to escape to the Turkish Embassy. – AFP, AP