Anderson Cooper Among Many Journalists Attacked in Cairo

Journalists in Cairo are being targeted and attacked, apparently by supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, several news organizations are reporting today.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was punched in the head and kicked while trying to make his way into the "no-man's land" between the anti-Mubarak and pro-Mubarak crowds.

"We realized the situation would get very bad very quickly," Cooper said in a broadcast afterward. "We turned around and started to walk calmly. The crowd kept growing, kept throwing more punches, kicks, trying to grab us. It was pandemonium."

Got roughed up by thugs in pro-mubarak crowd..punched and kicked repeatedly. Had to escape. Safe nowless than a minute ago via webAnderson Cooper
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Reporters Without Borders has received "scores" of confirmed reports of violence against journalists, including employees of Al-Jazeera, Al Arabiya, ABC News, the BBC and CNN. The group also reports Belgian journalist Serge Dumont was arrested and beaten by men in plain clothes today, then taken to a military post and accused of spying.

The local media has also been targeted. The headquarters of the daily publication Al-Shorouk were attacked by a group of men the paper described as "plainclothes police," the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. A reporter and a photographer were injured, and the photographer's camera was smashed.

"Clearly the Mubarak regime is trying to gag the local media," Tala Dowlatshahi, a senior adviser at Reporters Without Borders, told AOL News. "This is a typical response from the Egyptian government that's had a very stringent policy toward the press."

An Al Arabiya correspondent who spoke on air by telephone reported that she had been attacked by plainclothes police or government-hired assailants. Al Arabiya's Cairo office was attacked and its windows were broken.

ABC News correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported that a mob chased her and her crew while they were trying to film on a bridge and then broke their car's windshield as they tried to drive away. The crowd was shouting that they hate America.

"And so the overwhelming feeling on the street is one of fear, of how this is now going to go. If Mubarak leaves precipitously, there could be real chaos," Amanpour wrote.

Atlantic contributing editor Graeme Wood wrote that he was roughed up by five men in plain clothes who "hit me three times ... grabbed my video camera and still camera, shouting 'memory card,' and tried to break it. ... Then two of them grabbed my arms and ejected me from the square."

The Associated Press reported today that two of its reporters were also "roughed up." And four Israeli journalists were arrested for violating the curfew in Cairo and for entering the country on travel visas instead of work visas, according to Haaretz.

"We remind all parties that journalists are external observers who under no circumstances should be identified with one side or the other," Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement. "These attacks seem to have been acts of revenge against the international media for relaying the protests calling for President Mubarak's resigning. They are also designed to silence journalists and gag news media."

P.J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, also chimed in via Twitter, writing, "We are concerned about detentions and attacks on news media in #Egypt. The civil society that Egypt wants to build includes a free press."