Journalists said attacked in Cairo

NEW YORK, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- President Hosni Mubarak's supporters have begun to violently attack journalists in Cairo, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

The non-profit group, which promotes press freedom and the rights of journalists, said in a statement issued in New York the attacks represent a shift in tactics from recent media censorship.

"The Egyptian government is employing a strategy of eliminating witnesses to their actions," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. "The government has resorted to blanket censorship, intimidation and today a series of deliberate attacks on journalists carried out by pro-government mobs. The situation is frightening not only because our colleagues are suffering abuse but because when the press is kept from reporting, we lose an independent source of crucial information."

The group's statement said among those attacked was Ahmed Bajano, an al-Arabiya correspondent in Cairo, who reportedly was beaten while covering a pro-Mubarak demonstration. Bajano and his camera crew were attacked by men in plainclothes in Mustafa Mahmoud Square, and he suffered a concussion.

Also among those attacked was BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the committee said. BBC reported his car was forced off the road in Cairo "by a group of angry men." Wingfield-Hayes was detained, handed over to secret police agents who handcuffed and blindfolded him and an unnamed colleague, and detained in an interrogation room for three hours.