Journalists targeted, beaten, detained by Mubarak supporters - That will teach them to support governments

Sent as reporters to document the turmoil in Egypt, journalists on Wednesday became targets -- beaten, bloodied, harassed and detained by raging men, most all in some way aligned with embattled President Hosni Mubarak.

Numerous news outlets -- including the BBC, ABC News and CNN -- reported members of their staffs had been attacked, most on the streets of Cairo. In several cases, news personnel were accused of being "foreign spies," seized and whisked away, and often assaulted.

"It was pandemonium. There was no control. Suddenly a man would come up to you and punch you in the face," said CNN's Anderson Cooper, describing being attacked by pro-Mubarak demonstrators with two colleagues outside of Tahir Square.

The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news network was among the worst hit, its office damaged and several of its staff targeted. Among them was correspondent Ahmed Abdullah, who his editor confirmed Wednesday was found bloodied and transported to a hospital after being severely beaten by his captors.

Maurice Sarfatti told the Brussels-based Le Soir newspaper, which he writes for along with publications in Switzerland and France, that he "received a steam of blows to the face" from men claiming he backed leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

"I am being guarded by two soldiers with Kalashnikovs (rifles) and bayonets," said Sarfatti, according to a translation from Le Soir. "They say I will be taken before the intelligence services. They say I am a spy."

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy organization, claimed that such accounts were all too commonplace around Cairo. In a news release, the group detailed about a dozen incidents, accusing men -- most of them described as pro-Mubarak demonstrators, "plainclothes police," uniformed officers and military -- of perpetrating attacks on reporters toting cameras and notepads.

The group laid the blame for this violence squarely on President Mubarak's administration, accusing it of scheming to suppress and stifle news coverage.

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Journalists targeted, beaten, detained by Mubarak supporters - That will teach them to support governments

Journalists targeted, beaten, detained by Mubarak supporters - That will teach them to support governments

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