NEW YORK, April 29 -- A neo-Nazi South African group's beating of a black American reporter adds another ugly incident to a list of violent attacks on media workers in the racially torn country, a journalist advocacy group said Friday.
New York Daily News reporter Michael Allen was attacked Thursday at a rally by the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known by its Afrikaans initials AWB. The paramilitary group has been linked to bombings that have killed 21 people as South Africa prepared for this week's first multiracial elections.
A gang surrounded Allen, who is black, and kickedand punched him after he and other reporters arrived at an AWB rally in Rustenburg, South Africa. Police and soldiers watched the rally and attack from across a road, but did not intervene.
The Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known by its Afrikaans initials AWB, is a small extreme-right group that opposes political and racial reforms that are bringing the end of minority rule, and has pledged to use violence if necessary to secure a white homeland.
The U.S. State Department called the attack 'unprovoked' and said in a statement, 'The freedom of the press to cover South African political events is crucial to the democratic process, and the United States deplores any action which inhibits that freedom.'
Allen was continuing to cover the historic elections, said Daily News Deputy National Editor Robert Massi, adding 'He's working on a couple of Sunday pieces.'
Newspaper management protested to the country's ambassador in Washington, and South African police are said to be investigating, Massi said.
'It's the first time something like this ever happened' to a News reporter in South Africa, he said.
Eleanor Bedford of the Committee to Protect Journalists said South Africa has been a dangerous worksite, and last year, more than 70 reporters from around the world were attacked in the line of duty there.
This year, two journalists have been killed in South Africa, including one less than two weeks ago, she said. Ken Oosterbroek, a photographer for the Johannesburg newspaper the Star, was caught in gunfire and killed April 18.
Of the assault on Allen she said, 'Obviously, the attack was racially motivated.'
African National Congress President Nelson Mandela said Friday he believed South Africa's first all-race election would be declared valid and allow the country to move forward as a true multiracial democracy.NEWLN: (written by Peg Byron in New York, with reporting from Patrick Collins in Johannesburg and Michael Collins in Rustenburg)
