The head of information for Belgian newspaper Le Soir told the International Press Institute (IPI) today that his country’s ambassador to Cairo spoke by telephone this afternoon with detained correspondent Serge Dumont, who said he had been interrogated by Egyptian authorities.

Belgian Ambassador M. Bruno Neve de Mevergnies  reportedly said Dumont indicated he was violently attacked by men in plain-clothes while covering a midday demonstration in favour of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek in the central Cairo neighbourhood of Choubra. Dumont said he was taken to a military post where he was accused of “spying,” Jurek Kuczkiewicz of Le Soir told IPI.

Dumont spoke with Neve de Mevergnies at approximately 14:30 C.E.T., Kuczkiewicz said, and told the ambassador that he had already been interrogated once and that authorities told him he would shortly be interrogated again, Kuczkiewicz said.

“We are very anxious,” Kuczkiewicz commented. “We are worried. We don’t know precisely who is detaining him. …We request his immediate release and we wish to get news about his situation directly. We want to ensure that he is safe, free and able to work.”

Dumont is a Middle East correspondent for Le Soir as well as for Switzerland’s Le Temps and France’s La Voix du Nord. He was able to telephone Le Soir earlier in the day, where he described the encounter.

“It was heavy-handed and violent,” he recounted. “I was hit several times in the face. They claimed I was pro-Baradei. I was then taken to the military in one of the barracks on the outskirts of the city. I was given a glass of water from the Nile, they told me, so that I would catch diarrhoea. I am being guarded by two soldiers with Kalashnikovs and bayonets. They say I will be taken before the intelligence services. They say I am a spy.”

Kuczkiewicz said Dumont, whose real name is Maurice Sarfatti, has written under a pseudonym for decades since beginning his career as a reporter in Brussels in the 1980s, but Kuczkiewicz indicated that he was unable to say why Dumont chose to do so. However, he added, Dumont’s true identity “never was a secret.”

IPI Acting Director Alison Bethel McKenzie condemned the attack on Dumont and his detention, which she said came amidst a growing number of reports of harassment and attacks targeting journalists in Egypt.

“The brutal attack on, and effective kidnapping of, a journalist covering a public demonstration has no place in a modern society,” she said. “Unfortunately, this is the case whenever there is a conflict in many underdeveloped countries around the world. Reporters should be allowed to do their jobs freely, and we call on Egyptian authorities to immediately release Mr. Dumont and to prevent further similar attacks.”