NEW YORK — In multiple incidents, journalists covering Egypt’s unrest were pummeled, hit with pepper spray, shouted at and threatened by loyalists to President Hosni Mubarak.
“For the first time in the last few days, we can feel what dictatorship really means,” said Lara Logan of CBS News.
When a CBS camera crew attempted to take pictures of violence between pro- and anti- government crowds, they were marched back to their hotel at gunpoint, Logan said.
Veteran international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, now working for ABC News, was trying to interview a Mubarak supporter when she was surrounded by several young men shouting, “We hate Americans,” and “Go to hell.” When they tried to leave, her crew’s car was surrounded by men banging on the sides and windows.
Blaming the press when things are going bad is a “time- honored and sad tradition,” she said.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper said he, a producer and a camera operator were set upon by people who punched them and tried to break their camera.
“This is incredibly fast-moving,” Cooper said. “I’ve been in mobs before, and I’ve been in riots, but I’ve never had it turn so quickly.” The Associated Press
