These last days on television, newspapers, radio, blogs, twitter, on the street... we continuously hear the news and information about the uprising in Egypt. Thousands, millions of people are taking the streets in the capital city to protest against the repressive regime of Mubarak, who has been oppressing its inhabitans and has been involved in corrupt activities. They demand his immediate resignation, but Mubarak seems not to listen.
We are able to receive all this information because we live in a global world where anyone can get news 24/7, where correspondents are sent to the focus of news, where journalists work all day and expose themselves to danger so that we can be informed about what is going on in the world. And, sometimes, it is not easy for them to do their job.
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| Protests at Tahrir Square, Cairo |
In the Egypt riots these last ten days we hear how difficult it is to inform about a repressive country in hard times. Despite the fact that we are in the 21st century some governments do not care about international law or press freedom when it is about preserving their image.
Journalists are informing that Egyptian police, Mubarak's secret police and supporters are attacking them, arresting them, confiscating their equipment and even destroying it. Why do they do that? Well, the answer is very simple. Mubarak's government wants to avoid that journalists tell the truth about the situation in which his country is right now.
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| Journalist on the floor being stopped by the army |
Media crew from various countries have suffered from the attacks. At first it seemed that just Arabic language news channels (al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya) were the target of pro-government protesters, but in the last few days press crew from Britain, the US, Spain, Greece and France have also been injured.
As Mubarak cannot control the protests and Egyptians, he at least tries to control the media. His first movement was to cut Internet access in the country so that the population could not inform others via Emails, Facebook or Twitter. His tactic worked for some days but operators quickly found a way to overcome Mubarak's cuts. When the Internet was restablished, the next step was the media, broadcast and print media.
At this moment nobody with a notepad or camera in hand is safe in Egypt. The government is determined to hide the truth and will do anything to achieve that. However, Mubarak and his supporters are not being successful. This time he will not end up being victorious by playing with the truth. Fortunately, the world seems not to accept anymore war spin and propaganda.
Below you can watch a video showing the experiences of two journalists attacked in Cairo.
