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Egypten: Fortsatte protester og tæv til journalister
Adskillige journalister fik beslaglagt deres udstyr og enkelte fik tæv, da de i dag forsøgte at dække omfattende protestdemonstrationer i Cairo, læser vi hos Aljazeera:
Plainclothes police officers dragged away cameramen from news organisations, including Reuters and Al Jazeera television, and confiscated their cameras.The Sandmonkey har omfattende dækning inkl. billeder - der er ballade og polititæsk til alle, mens de danske medier endnu er tavse som graven:
Two of the Al Jazeera team were beaten - Yasir Suleiman, a cameraman, and Nasri Yousif, a soundman.
(...)
"We learned that the protesters had moved to a street behind the building, so we moved with our equipment to cover the protest. Suddenly, six security men attacked me, trying to take my camera.
"When I refused, they started beating me. They tried to arrest me in a nearby building. ... I also resisted, so they took the camera by force from me," he said.
"A couple more demonstrations popping up all over the place. They are all following the same pattern: People gather and demonstrate, chant for like 5 minutes, police comes and breaks it up, arrests 5 people, chases away the rest, who regroup in another location and start another demonstration, always near the Darr al qadaa al ally (the High court building). They are spreading like wildfire and the police seems helpless and unable to put them out, so they are just beating and arresting people. War is declared in Downtown Cairo and it seems that dozens, if not hundreds, will be arrested today."
(...)"About 700 Judges are at the Judges club protesting, but the media is not allowed to get inside and cover it because of the police. There are rumors that 10 Judges (the leaders: Bastawesy and co.) will strike and not go to court until all of those arrested today get released. If this is confirmed, it would be huge, because other judges will surely follow, and with the Judicial branch on strike, well, the country really can not function. This might get really interesting."
(...)
"A significant amount of people (Islamists, MB, Kifaya, liberals, pharmacists, and others) came out to protest in solidarity against the trumped-up joke that has become the Egyptian legal system’s pro-regime lackeys trying their own. While the amounts of security made one unified gathering impossible, a number of sporadic protests took place when possible. It was sort of like a game of cat and mouse."
Som sagt er de danske medier indtil videre tavse som graven på trods af, at dette her faktisk ser ud til at kunne få vidtrækkende konsekvenser: Det er mange år siden, Egypten har set borgerretsaktivisme i denne skala, og myndighederne er tydeligvis blevet fanget på det forkerte ben.
Det glæder mig, at der i det mindste er andre end mig selv, som har lagt mærke til, at denne udvikling potentielt kan få stor betydning.
Abu Aardvark skriver således:
We'll keep you posted ... medmindre det eskalerer i en grad så også de danske medier tvinges til at fortælle om det.What's happening right now in Egypt is really important. As I read things, the last few months have seen the steady counter-attack by the regime against the various protest movements which had become increasingly active over the last year and a half: the judges, Kefaya, the MB, and so on. As the latest round of protests, repression, and arrests kicked in, you could sense a palpable air of hopelessness spreading. The Bush administration could hardly be bothered to pretend to care. According to emails I got, and some news accounts, even al-Jazeera was backing off coverage of the protests - probably in response to the arrest of its correspondent in the Sinai.
Over the last few days, we're starting to see whether some of the constituent elements of the contentious movements of 2005 can kick in. The protests over the hearings on judges Mahmoud Mekki and Hisham Bastawisi have turned large, and the harsh regime response is receiving some coverage in the Arab media: al-Quds al-Arabi covers it, though neither of the allegedly liberal Saudi owned dailies (al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat) can find room for it on the front page; while both al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya currently have long lead stories on their web sites, illustrated with the same AFP picture (I heard that the al-Jazeera camerman got beat up pretty badly for his efforts)
