"CAIRO -- Facing a wave of international condemnation for its approach to a Muslim Brotherhood protest movement, and the soaring violence that followed in its wake, Egypt's government opened a sustained broadside against Western journalists over the weekend, accusing them of ignoring facts and "biased coverage."
"Egypt is feeling severe bitterness towards some Western media coverage that is biased to the Muslim Brotherhood and ignores shedding light on violent and terror acts that are perpetrated by this group in the form of intimidation operations and terrorizing citizens," one statement from the official foreign press coordination center said.
The criticism from officials within the government -- including statements or media appearances, much of them in English, by the presidential spokesman, the foreign minister and the press center -- came as several journalists found themselves subject to attacks on the streets of Cairo as they attempted to do their jobs.
On Saturday alone, half a dozen reporters faced intimidation, assault and detention by both authorities and unofficial vigilante gangs, as the journalists attempted to cover the siege of a mosque in downtown Cairo, where Muslim Brotherhood supporters had holed up ever since fighting broke out on Friday.
Matt Bradley, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Alastair Beach, a correspondent with the Independent, both came under attack from the unruly mobs that had swarmed around the mosque, seeking to take out their frustration with the Brotherhood. Both men were eventually pulled from the crowd by nearby Army soldiers and suffered minimal physical damage, although Beach was hit in the head by an assailant with a long stick.
In a dramatic moment captured live on the television cameras of Al Jazeera, the two men could be seen being shielded by a group of sympathetic bystanders who formed an arm-linked chain, while the soldiers put the two reporters into an armored personnel carrier for their protection.....
In an even more harrowing experience, Patrick Kingsley, the Egypt correspondent for the British paper the Guardian, documented on Twitter a series of captures and releases over the afternoon at the hands of several different gangs of individuals downtown, some of them police, others seemingly unrelated to the authorities. His laptop computer and cellphone were also taken from him in the process.
Earlier in the week, officials at the Press Center, which regulates and accredits foreign journalists, announced that no visiting journalists would be issued press identifications without prior approval from the intelligence services, a break from long-standing practice.
In a statement put out on Friday, Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the situation facing reporters in Egypt unprecedented. "Journalists are in more danger than they were under Hosni Mubarak," he said......"
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