CAIRO: As bitter clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square continue into their fourth day, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today reported that members of the media, too, are enduring the wrath of the security crackdown in the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. At least 17 cases of attacks on journalists were reported to CPJ. “Journalists must be able to carry out their work without threat of assault,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for CPJ. “Prosecutors have an obligation to investigate claims of abuse by military and police against journalists.” Youm7 photographer Maher Iskandar was shot in the leg yesterday while filming the fierce, ongoing battle that has left Mohamed Mahmoud Street littered with rocks, glass, tear gas canisters and shell casings. Al-Masry Al-Youm staffer Ahmed Abd al-Fattah sustained an eye injury while covering the demonstration which more and more calls for the resignation Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Chief Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. Al-Fattah is currently recovering after treatment. Motaz Zaki from independent Al-Tahrir was detained yesterday for several hours by security forces and Rasha Azab, an editor with Al-Nagr, is recovering at a local hospital after suffering injuries while reporting. A videographer from Al-Masry Al-Youm also reported an assault during which his camera was confiscated and footage deleted. Mirroring the events of last January and February, the unrest in Cairo has sparked similar uprisings in the main Egyptian population centers of Suez and Alexandria where demonstrators have taken to the streets in solidarity with the exhausted Tahrir protestors. One reporter in Alexandria, Sarhan Sinara of daily Al-Akhbar, was arrested and suffered repeated beatings from security forces while in detention for six hours, CPJ also reported. Sinara is now released and recovering. Three Al-Shorouq staffers – Mohamed Fuad, Essam Amer and Mohamed Shakir – reported harassment while covering the Alexandria protests as did Ahmed Ramadan, a photographer for Al-Tahrir. These journalists today filed an official complaint with local prosecutors in which they lay responsibility for the assaults on the Alexandria Security Directorate, members of which allegedly beat Sinara both before and after he offered his press credentials. Meanwhile SCAF has offered no comment on the journalist crackdown and continues to grapple both with defiant demonstrators and the possibility of dismissing the Egyptian Cabinet – all of whom tendered resignations last night. Protests and clashes continued this morning in Tahrir Square and on streets leading to the Ministry of the Interior – particularly Mohamed Mahmoud – as activists sounded the call for a massive million-man demonstration at 4:00 p.m. today.
