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GENEVA / EGYPT JOURNALISTS
STORY: GENEVA / EGYPT JOURNALISTS
TRT: 2.18
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 31 JANUARY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, tilt up, press room, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
"We are extremely concerned about the increasingly severe clampdown and physical attacks on media in Egypt, which is hampering their ability to operate freely."
3. Wide shot, dais
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“In recent months, there have been numerous reports of harassment, detention and prosecution of national and international journalists as well as violent attacks, including several that led to injuries to reporters trying to cover last weekend’s third anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. Unconfirmed reports suggest that several journalists were wounded by live fire as well as rubber bullets last Saturday, some of which may have been fired by opponents of the government as well as by police and other government forces.”
5. Wide shot, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“Wednesday’s announcement that the Egyptian Prosecutor-General intends to bring to trial 16 local and 4 foreign journalists alleged to have worked for the international broadcaster Al-Jazeera, on vague charges including “aiding a terrorist group” and “harming the national interest”, is also of great concern."
7. Med shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“We urge the Egyptian authorities to promptly release all journalists imprisoned for carrying out legitimate news reporting activities in exercise of their fundamental human rights. It is the State’s obligation to ensure that the right to freedom of expression is respected, and that journalists are able to report on diverse views and issues surrounding the current situation in Egypt.”
9. Close up, journalist
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“These are people carrying cameras not guns. Cameras seek to illuminate what is happening, not silence information about what is happening, it’s extraordinary to find this is being put into the kind of terrorist dialogue, that journalists are supporting terrorists this is really alarming development we hope it changes very quickly.”
11. Med shot, journalists
The UN human rights office urged today (31 Jan) the authorities to investigate reports of violence against journalists working in Egypt and to promptly release those imprisoned for carrying out their legitimate activities.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville said "we are extremely concerned about the increasingly severe clampdown and physical attacks on media in Egypt, which is hampering their ability to operate freely."
He explained that, in recent months, there have been numerous reports of harassment, detention and prosecution of national and international journalists; including violent attacks. He noted that several of those attacks led to injuries to reporters trying to cover last weekend’s third anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.
He said that “unconfirmed reports suggest that several journalists were wounded by live fire as well as rubber bullets last Saturday, some of which may have been fired by opponents of the government as well as by police and other government forces.”
Colville said that “these are people carrying cameras not guns. Cameras seek to illuminate what is happening, not silence information about what is happening.”
The UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay said the accusations amount to intimidation and harassment of the media which was an affront to the enjoyment of the freedom of expression and opinion in the country.
Pillay also termed as vague charges of aiding a terrorist group and harming national interests leveled against 16 local and 4 foreign journalists working for the international broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
The UN Human Rights office stated that all reports of violence against journalists must be independently and transparently investigated.
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