Report from Cairo: Attack on journalists and clashes in Tahrir Square

Anchor: Now to Cairo. Still in Cairo, our correspondent Gideon Kouts. Are the press corps still there, or are they leaving out of concern for their safety?

Gideon Kouts: Look, the press corps are definitely a target now for President Mubarak’s militias—the so-called Mubarak supporters, who were sent into the streets today and are terrorizing people there, as they did in the square. They gathered down here, right here on the Corniche along the Nile, and marched from here into the square in a very organized way. I walked along with them and could see that the army, which was usually there to inspect those entering, simply moved aside and let them in. And what happened to me personally there also points to the general trend. After I left them there, I was on the other side of the—of the people who had been there all along, whom they wanted to drive out, and I saw the beginning of this scuffle: the people being attacked tried to get stones, while the militias brought out clubs. I wanted to move to a certain place there, and then a hysterical woman started shouting, “He’s a foreigner, he’s a journalist.” They immediately pounced on me. I was hit from every direction. I tried not to let them knock me to the ground, because I had seen what happened to people who were knocked down and had heavy stones hurled at their heads. The ones who actually rescued me and got me out were two members of opposition movements. At first they tried to take me to the army post, but the officer in charge refused to intervene. He refused to intervene; he was simply ordered to stand down—in fact, he angrily drove me away from there. The army had apparently been instructed to let the militias—or perhaps not the militias, these volunteers—do this. Later I managed to get away. What also happened was that the entire square was surrounded on all sides by supporters of President Mubarak. It was a planned operation. They arrived in cars, they arrived on motorcycles, and at one point they even burst into the square in a completely surreal way, on camels and horses. So this evening, as they return from there more or less victorious, the fighting is still going on there. The people being attacked, or those who have been there all along—the ones who want, in the coming days, to try nevertheless to persuade President Mubarak to leave—are still trying to defend themselves with Molotov cocktails. One can say that today President Mubarak is celebrating a kind of sad victory. His militias are roaming the streets. It was difficult even for me to get to the studio here. There is fear in the streets of Cairo. Does he want to stay on for his remaining months this way? That is, that is a question. One of Mubarak’s supporters told me, “We are the silent majority. Why won’t they let him transfer power as he should?” Well, that majority was not so silent today, and that...

Anchor: You’re saying that this was organized, that the authorities organized the people, but at least from here it looks as though their anger is authentic, that these people are really fighting for Mubarak.

Gideon Kouts: Look, some of the people I spoke with are definitely fighting for Mubarak for political and ideological reasons, out of love of country. Others are fighting because they were paid. I have no doubt that among them were people who perhaps belonged to various services, or, as I was told, perhaps criminals who had been released, and so on. The people who attacked me were not exactly people of pure intentions; they had been told to attack foreigners, and that is what they did. The army did not help me because it had been told not to help foreigners. The aim here is simply to make the situation deteriorate and to express Egypt’s anger at foreign interference in its affairs, as we heard in President Mubarak’s speech yesterday. He mentioned it too: “We will put things in order ourselves.”

Anchor: Yes.

Gideon Kouts: In isolation, that is, without the media as well.

Anchor: Gideon Kouts in Cairo. One can say this with all sincerity: take care of yourself.