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Babylon & Beyond

EGYPT: Authorities create new obstacles for journalists, media watchdog says

By Alexandra Zaviswriter 
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The Committee to Protect Journalists says Egyptian authorities are creating new obstacles for media workers, despite assurances that they are free to cover protests that have gripped the country for two weeks.

A number of journalists told the New York-based media watchdog that the military is obstructing their work and refusing many of them entry to Tahrir Square, the center of anti-government demonstrations. They say their press cards were confiscated and they were told to obtain new credentials from the Information Ministry, CPJ said in a statement Monday.

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‘The sudden change in policy regarding press credentials is simply the latest effort to restrict the work of journalists, many of whom have already been beaten by mobs and detained by authorities,’ CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in the statement.

Journalists are also reporting that they have been mistreated while in custody. CPJ said it has documented at least 140 attacks on journalists and news facilities since Jan. 30.

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-- Alexandra Zavis

Babylon & Beyond
Alexandra Zavis

Alexandra Zavis is a former writer and editor on the Los Angeles Times’ Foreign Desk who has reported from more than 40 countries. She spent a decade with the Associated Press, covering Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other war-torn places. After joining The Times in 2006, she has served as a Baghdad correspondent and as a California reporter covering poverty and veterans issues. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award for distinguished reporting on foreign affairs and was part of teams of reporters awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for foreign correspondence and APME’s International Perspective Award. She is a graduate of Oxford University and City University in London.

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