Media professionals have come under attack while covering clashes between protesters and security forces near Tahrir Square in Cairo – in an echo of the violence against the media that occurred during the mass demonstrations that ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power earlier this year, according to news reports.
Reporters covering the latest clashes were brutally assaulted and some were detained. Photographers and camera people had their equipment broken or confiscated, reports said. On Sunday, the third day of clashes, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) published a list [add hyperlink] of journalists who had been beaten and detained, and television networks whose live broadcasts had been interrupted, including ON TV, CBC and Al Jazeera.
U.S. journalist Joseph Mayton, who writes for Bikya Masr, described on the media outlet’s website how he had been beaten, threatened and detained, but had not received any assistance from the U.S. embassy, who Mayton said had expressed concern over the diplomatic aspects of his detention and said he shouldn’t have gone to a “dangerous” place. Mayton wrote: “I am a journalist and it is my job to document. The American embassy and government should know better than to make such claims.”
IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said. “It is the responsibility of security forces to ensure the ability of reporters and cameramen to do their job, including providing live coverage of events, conducting interviews, filming and taking pictures.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on disparities between state media and private media coverage of the clashes, with state media reportedly repeating the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) version of events, which stated that the protesters were hooligans, rather than the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring. Protesters said they were fighting the SCAF’s continued control over the transition process, during which thousands of activists, including bloggers, had faced military trials for voicing their criticism of the military and its handling of the revolution. A number of press freedom violations have been recorded since elections began in late November.
On Sunday, several journalists from private media houses protested on the steps of the Egyptian Syndicate of Journalists, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. Several of the protesters, from television and print media, reportedly said they had received death threats in recent days as a result of their coverage. But a counter-protest reportedly formed, accusing the demonstrating journalists of being “false media”.
The ongoing parliamentary elections have empowered the Muslim Brotherhood, followed by Salafist groups. Liberal Egyptian groups had called for a delay in elections so that they would have time to prepare political parties and platforms, and seek an immediate end to the military’s control over the political process.
