Anderson Cooper and crew punched, beaten by pro-Mubarak forces
Read Time:1 Minute, 55 Second
CNN’s Anderson Cooper said Wednesday that he and his crew were violently attacked by pro-Mubarak forces as they tried to make their way through the streets of Cairo.
“Anderson Cooper punched 10 times in the head as pro-Mubarak mob surrounds him and his crew at Cairo rally,” Maan News Agency’s George Hale tweeted.
Cooper described his ordeal on CNN’s American Morning.
“I just tried to make my way to Liberation Square and got as far as the Egyptian Museum and with my team: Marion Fox, my producer and Neil, my cameraman,” he began.
“One man grabbed Neil’s camera and started screaming, ‘no, no,’ trying to take the camera from him. We intervened peacefully, and literally that was the switch that ignited the crowd, and they just set upon us, punching us, kicking us,” Cooper continued.
“We had, I mean, literally a mob of people surround us just, you know, I got punched in the head probably a good ten times or so, and we literally ended up being turned around by the crowd, and we had tried to walk because we didn’t want to run because if we started to run, the crowd would, you know, sense fear and attack us even more,” he said.
“All of us are fine. My producer was roughed up, my female producer was roughed up by the crowd as well. They clearly do not want cameras present in the square and are incredibly hostile to any media.”
“Down in the crowd, can you even make out which side is which?” asked CNN host TJ Holmes. “Who is who? Who is coming after and attacking you guys you?”
“Well, it’s clear. I know exactly who is attacking us, it’s the pro mubarak forces, no doubt about it.”
Moments later, a female caller named Salma Eltarzi told Al Jazeera that pro-Mubarak forces were trying to enter Tahrir Square.
“Please do no call them protesters,” she pleaded. “Protesters do not come in government busses. They do not come armed.”
“People are leaving the women in the middle [of the square]. The men are going to the entrances to try to stop them from entering… People are beaten up. People are drowning in their blood,” she frantically reported.
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What do you mean, Mike? “If Mubarek had an ounce of decency…” Tyrants are tyrants. Death to Tyrants.
The USA and the World needs so badly to get some good news, to get lucky, as it were. When I think of Mubarek’s offer to ‘share power’, I think of Robert Magabe’s similar offer and what it has led to. These are two men who have octogenarian foreheads calling out for a bullet between the eyes. Think how many lives those two bullets would save. An Egyptian military officer should stand up and perform his patriotic duty. Being a man of religious bent, I pray that he will. Sooner rather than later. Mubarek said he wanted to die on Egyptian soil; he should be obliged.
Mubarek has to be paying these thugs..where have they been for the last ten days?
He is paying them. I heard that on the news this morning.
it actually had a chance for a bit now it’s turned to shit.
There will be even more blood in the streets now Tom. If Mubarak had an ounce of decency he would leave, and leave now.