I go where I must, and do what I can.
A 1st-person report from our reporter and photographer who was threatened and attacked in Cairo today (2/3/2011)
Never, in my three years in Cairo, had I experienced anything like it. But it was nothing compared to what happened when we joined the protests at Tahrir Square.
Violence had broken out suddenly as thugs and Mubarak supporters attacked the peaceful crowd. We ran to cover the action from the side of the pro-democracy, anti-Mubarak crowd. Yet when Ann raised her camera to photograph the men throwing rocks, she was an instant magnet for abuse.
Men hit her camera, pushed her, and roughed her up. “No photos!” they shouted threateningly. We tried to leave them behind, but more like them were everywhere.
When one of them grabbed her and tried to drag her off, we struggled with him and Ann’s shirt was torn. We were under siege; everywhere we turned, people were threatening us. It was clear that other foreign journalists around us, particularly photographers, were also being attacked. Some were also arrested.
It was one thing to keep an eye out for incoming rocks or tear gas canisters, as I had done the previous week when police fought the protesters, with a friendly crowd around me. It was another to try to dodge flying chunks of concrete and angry aggressive men at the same time.
- Kristen Chick, the Monitor’s Cairo correspondent, has been on this story since Jan. 25.