Egypt urged to protect journalists

European leaders have urged Egyptian authorities to protect reporters covering the country’s crisis.

The call came as a Swedish TV journalist was reported in serious condition after being stabbed.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt urged the Egyptian authorities to “respect the journalists”.

Reporters are “the eyes and the ears of the world at the moment,” he told a European Union summit in Brussels.

He was speaking a day after the attack on reporter Bert Sundstrom of Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based media watchdog, said it had recorded 24 detentions of journalists, 21 assaults and five cases in which equipment was detained over a 24-hour period.

Among those detained have been correspondents for The New York Times, Washington Post and Al-Jazeera.

Foreign photographers reported attacks by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak near Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Sundstrom disappeared from near his hotel on Thursday afternoon, SVT said. When an editor called Sundstrom’s mobile phone, a man answered in Arabic, saying the reporter was in the hands of the Egyptian government, the broadcaster said.

Sundstrom was in serious but stable condition at a Cairo hospital following surgery. He also sustained head injuries in the attack.

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lene Espersen said she was “appalled” by reports about repeated attacks against international journalists.

Denmark’s TV2 channel aired footage of an attack on a veteran reporter and his cameraman, who escaped from an angry mob wielding clubs in Alexandria.

French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie condemned “the unacceptable incidents that have compromised the security” of journalists from French media outlets.

France 24 TV said three of its journalists who had been held for 24 hours had again been picked up by Egyptian military police, only hours after their release.

France’s leading broadcaster, TF1, said two of its reporters were being held for questioning.

Yesterday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denounced the “systematic targeting” of reporters covering the protests.

Two Fox News Channel journalists were severely beaten by a mob near Tahrir Square on Wednesday.

The Greek newspaper Kathimerini said its correspondent in Cairo was treated in hospital for a stab wound to the leg after being attacked by pro-Mubarak demonstrators.

The UN’s top human rights official has denounced attacks on activists and journalists and backs the idea of a special session of the UN’s Human Rights Council to address the violence.

Navi Pillay told reporters in Geneva the “outrageous” assaults and detentions of advocates and journalists are “clearly a blatant attempt to stifle news”.

She said “one of the prime drivers of this chaos seems to have been the actions of Egypt’s security and intelligence services”.