An Egyptian journalist says she was forcibly taken to the Nahda Square sit-in and threatened with violence by pro-Mohamed Morsi protesters who looked through the images on her camera. Demonstrators in Nahda deny the incident took place.
Aya Hassan was following and filming a march on Friday from the Mostafa Mahmoud Mosque in Mohandiseen towards the Nahda sit-in in front of Cairo University, said Osama Galal, manager of Youm7’s video website Video7.
Hassan was filming one of the marchers beating a man who opposed them and it was at this point she was detained, according to the state owned news agency Ahram.
Some of the demonstrators taking part in the march objected to her presence there and forcibly took her to Nahda Square where they took her camera and threatened to hit her, said Galal.
In an interview with ONTV following the incident, Hassan said that some of the protesters approached her with a blood stained piece of cloth claiming it was the blood of those they had previously tortured.
Saad Mohamed, a demonstrator in Nahda Square and their media liaison, dismissed the accusations against his fellow protesters saying, “Youm7, other newspapers and television in Egypt are supported by the old regime of Mubarak.” He added, “I know these things are lies, and we laugh about these lies.”
Mohamed referred to a statement published by the Nahda sit-in as the official response to Hassan’s accusation. The statement says that the protesters at Nahda Square respect all journalists and said that caution should be exercised when dealing with “complaints that journalists have been attacked.” It continued, “After checking, it was found that there were no attacks on any journalist in the square.”
A number of other journalists have been assaulted while covering protests in Cairo.
Earlier, in August a photographer working for Al-Masry Al-Youm claimed that he was assaulted and his camera was taken from him at the Rabaa Al-Adaweya press centre.
Towards the end of July, a policeman hit a Daily News Egypt photographer in the face with his own camera before detaining him.
Al-Shorouk, a newspaper reporter with Nada El-Kholy and Al-Masry Al-Youm, a newspaper reporter with Menna Alaa were attacked while covering protests on 20 July and 19 July respectively. And, the Al-Jazeera cameraman, Mohamed Badr, was arrested on 15 July while covering clashes between protesters.
