Were Journalists Deliberately Targeted In Egypt?

Several news outlets and press freedom groups are raising the question of whether journalists have been deliberately targeted in the bloodshed currently engulfing Egypt.

Wednesday saw at least three journalists shot dead, and several others wounded, beaten and detained.

Bubbling up throughout the day was the contention that reporters and other journalists were being singled out.

"Egyptian forces thought to be targeting media workers," a headline in the Guardian read. The piece detailed some of what had happened to two wounded journalists, as well as others:

    Photographs posted on Twitter around the same time showed the two wounded men, who were identified by bystanders as cameramen. A helmet of the type worn by many media professionals in Cairo was also displayed with a penetrating hole in its side likely caused by a bullet.

The International Press Institute wrote that it had talked to witnesses who said that "reporters and photojournalists appeared to be targeted by both sides during the clashes."

The Washington Post's Abigail Hauslohner described her chilling confrontation with police:

    “If I see you again, I’ll shoot you in the leg,” a police officer told my colleagues, Sharaf al-Hourani and Mansour Mohamed, and me. Security forces on the roof of a nearby building watched us through binoculars. Two helicopters circled overhead.

In an interview with HuffPost Live's Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on Wednesday, Tom Finn, a Reuters journalist, made similar statements.

"I would imagine that the reason the journalists are being rounded up is because the government hopes to intimidate them and to prevent word of what's happening on the street getting out," he said.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: Jack Mirkinson