Miami Photographer Joshua Prezant

Thousands of journalist from TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Websites, and radio descended upon Dallas, TX to Cover Super Bowl 45.  Many have been there for over a week battling only the cold weather.  And later today they will report and show everything that is going on before, during, and after the game in living color and HD.  Many of these journalist will be doing so from the warm cozy press boxes at the covered dome in Dallas.  The biggest danger to be had by the press will be those photographers and videographers on the side line that could be be mowed down by a player being push out of bounce…..  But lets not forget or take for granted those journalist putting their lived on the line to cover the revolution in Egypt right now!!

These journalist,  like the ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and throughout the world act as the eyes and ears for the world.  They are on the front lines so that most americans can sit and watch, read, or listen to the happening around the world while eating a hot meal in the comforts of there own homes.   So the next time you see or speak to a journalist thank them for the hard and dangerous work they our doing.  THEY ARE WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT OF HISTORY.

Having worked in Egypt as a photojournalist I can tell you first hand that it is not like the US.  There is no freedom of the press.  The police can and do tell you what you can and can not photograph.  I had a not so undercover undercover officer follow me all around Egypt the whole time I was there making sure that I did not photograph “the poor” or anything else that would NOT show Egypt as a great tourist destination. I witnessed first hand the brutality of the state police and was helpless to show it.  And this was in a time of calm and peacefulness.   I can only image how difficult thing are on the ground right now.  When I was there working I was somewhat welcome as a foreign journalist that would show the wonderful sights of Egypt ( barring that I did not photograph the extreme poverty and police brutality).  But with everything going on there now, the regime knows that any journalist on the ground there now is not there to shoot scenic pictures of the pyramids and the markets.   They are there to report to the world what is really going on.   Lets hope and pray for their safety and the safety for all those in Egypt

Journalists in Egypt, especially Cairo are being assaulted, detained, and stripped of there gear.   There is even reports of a journalist, Ahmad Mohamed Mohmoud, being shot and later dyeing after working for the Newspaper Al-Ta’awun.  He was shot by what the newspaper says was sniper fire while filming a clash between security forces and protestors on January 28th.  He died from his wounds on Feb. 4th.

FROM THE COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALIST.. WWW.CPJ.ORG:

In the last 24 hours, CPJ documented another 10 anti-press assaults, 10 detentions, two attacks on newsrooms, and the hacking of a major news website. In all, CPJ has documented at least 101 direct attacks on journalists and news facilities this week, and it’s investigating numerous other reports.

Here is a round-up of new attacks on the press:

• Egyptian security agents have detained Al-Jazeera Cairo Bureau Chief Abdel Fatah Fayed and journalist Ahmad Youssif, who was with him at the time, according to Al-Jazeera’s website.

• Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at the U.K. Observer, and Jack Shenker, aGuardian reporter, were stopped today while trying to enter Tahrir Square, the Guardianreported. The paper said they were intercepted by government forces, forced to kneel facing a wall, and interrogated. Beaumont was quoted by the Guardian as saying: “Although the square itself is calm, things around the periphery are very different. We were taken at a checkpoint and led to the Ministry of the Interior … We were held for two hours … and we were both warned that if we came anywhere near the square again, things wouldn’t go so nicely for us.”

• Al-Hurra’s Cairo bureau was targeted on Thursday, the U.S. government-funded station told CPJ in an e-mail. Men stormed its offices and “threatened to kill Al-Hurra’s two on-air journalists–Akram Khuzam and Tarek El Shamy–if they didn’t leave the building,” the station said in a statement. The bureau was immediately closed.

• Two correspondents for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Robert Tait and Abdelilah Nuaimi, were detained in Cairo, the U.S.-government funded station reported. “We call on the Egyptian authorities to release our correspondents and their equipment immediately,” RFE/RL News Director Jay Tolson said.

• Andrew Henderson, a photographer working for UAE-based daily The National, was attacked on Thursday by a group of young men who broke his camera equipment,National reporter Hugh Naylor told CPJ in an e-mail. “Were it not for a bit of help from the military, he would likely have been mauled to death by an angry mob,” he told CPJ. Naylor himself was punched several times in the head “by some angry, plainclothes youth standing near the foreign ministry yesterday,” he said. “I will credit one apparent Mubarak loyalist for essentially saving my life. While pretending to be angry at me and taking my passport, he walked me away from the crowd and back safely to my hotel.”

• Al-Jazeera’s Arabic website was hacked today, the station reported on the air. According to a statement from the station, “For two hours this morning (from 6.30 am-8.30am Doha time), a banner advertisement was taken over and replaced with the slogan of ‘Together for the collapse of Egypt,’ which linked to a page criticizing Al-Jazeera.” A spokesman for Al-Jazeera said that engineers “moved quickly to solve the problem,” TheGuardian reported.

• Al-Jazeera’s Cairo office was stormed today by Mubarak supporters, the station reported on the air. Its office was vandalized and it equipment was set afire.

• Prominent Egyptian Blogger Wael Abbas tweeted today that he was detained and later released by military forces. He said he has been “getting stopped by every single checkpoint.”

• Al-Jazeera English producer Abdullah Mussa tweeted today that he had been attacked. He wrote: “Released from street checkpoint. Three machetes to my neck and angry mob. Foreign journalists are being accused if inflaming situation.”

• Eric Feijten, a reporter for Dutch news broadcaster Nederlande Omroep Stichting (NOS), was arrested and released at least twice in the past two days. NOS released a statement after his first arrest saying that Feijten had been beaten and threatened. “Finally after 17 hours without drinking or eating, he was released in a small hotel near the airport,” NOS wrote. He left Egypt today and tweeted: “At the airport and there was even a ticket. Kicked out, so i am not happy because i failed to do my job.”

• NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro was attacked on Wednesday, the station reported. Garcia-Navarro was preparing a piece about the impact of demonstrations on the daily lives of Egyptians when she and her colleague, Ashraf Khalil, were surrounded by dozens of men. “We were asked if we were Israeli spies, or employees of the Arabic news network Al-Jazeera, who have been a particular target of the authorities here. It began to get heated and they wouldn’t let us leave,” Garcia-Navarro said. She added that Khalil was punched repeatedly in the face.

• Andrew Butters of Time magazine was attacked on Thursday. “I was grabbed by a young guy with a club who hauled me over to an improvised checkpoint,” NPR quoted him as saying. He said it was clear that the actions were being coordinated by police and security agents.

• Radio-Canada cameraman Sylvain Castonguay and Radio-Canada producer Jean-Francois Lepine were badly beaten by pro-government supporters near Cairo’s airport on Wednesday after their crew’s interpreter was assaulted, CBC reported.

• A group of Chinese journalists were briefly detained on Thursday after customs officials discovered bulletproof vests, satellite phones, and walkie-talkies in their luggage, according to news reports. They were released but part of their equipment was confiscated

To read more reports:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/02/detained-in-cairo.html#entry-more

http://500photographers.blogspot.com/2011/02/unconventional-post-egypt-attacks.html

http://cpj.org/2011/02/egyptian-media-say-foreign-journalists-have-hidden.php

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/02/postcard-from-tahrir-square-kate-brooks.html

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 6th, 2011 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.