Journalist organization, Obama condemn attacks on reporters in Egypt

(CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the attacks on journalists in Egypt Friday amid mounting criticism that the assaults were being orchestrated by President Hosni Mubarak to suppress international coverage of bloodshed by pro-government operatives against peaceful protesters.
"We continue to be crystal clear that we oppose violence as a response to this crisis," Obama said. "We are sending a strong, unequivocal message: Attacks on reporters are unacceptable. Attacks on human rights activists are unacceptable. Attacks on peaceful protesters are unacceptable."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that the administration continues "to receive very disturbing reports" of "systematic targeting" of journalists in Egypt.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has excoriated Mubarak for "an unprecedented and systematic attack" on international reporters.

"This is a dark day for Egypt and a dark day for journalism," CPJ executive director Joel Simon said. "With this turn of events, Egypt is seeking to create an information vacuum that puts it in the company of the world's worst oppressors, countries such as Burma, Iran and Cuba."

"We hold President Mubarak personally responsible for this unprecedented action," said Simon, "and call on the Egyptian government to reverse course immediately."

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonprofit committee promoting press freedoms worldwide, said Friday it has recorded at least 101 direct attacks on journalists and news facilities this week. The anti-press activities include assaults, detentions and threats, the committee said.

Friday's attacks weren't as severe as Thursday's peak offenses, but the hostilities against a free press remain at "an alarming level that must be halted," the committee said.
Plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly went so far as to even enter journalists' hotels and confiscate equipment, the committee said.
A journalist shot a week ago while covering a demonstration died Friday, a state newspaper reported, according to the committee.

It was the first reported journalistic death during the weeklong uprising, it said.
Ahmad Mohamed Mahmoud of the newspaper Al-Ta'awun, published by the state-owned Al-Ahram Foundation, died from a sniper's bullets fired while he was filming confrontations between demonstrators and security forces January 28 in central Cairo's Qasr al-Aini area, adjacent to Tahrir Square, Al-Jazeera and the semi-official Al-Ahram reported Friday, according to the committee.

The Mubarak regime hasn't discriminated in which sorts of journalists are being attacked: Egyptians and other Arabs, Russians, Americans, Europeans and South Americans all have been targeted, the committee said.