Presstv Journalists attacked with hammer during tuition fee protests

A team of Presstv news production staff has been attacked with hammers by unknown mobs during tuition fee protests in London.

The members of the group said the attackers must have been connected with the police as they were also hitting students without officers caring to interrupt them.

A team of Presstv news production staff has been attacked with hammers by unknown mobs during tuition fee protests in London.

The attack on the team of Presstv reporter Hassan Ghani had their work disrupted as their cameraman Adam Apostol was knocked to the ground suffering hammer injuries to his waist and hands. He was rushed to the hospital after the attack.

Meanwhile a technical engineer with the group sustained hammer injuries to his knee in the assault.

The members of the group said the attackers must have been connected with the police as they were also hitting students without officers caring to interrupt them.

The British police have a record of dealing roughly with journalists, which includes an attack on freelance photographer David Hoffman during G20 protests in April 2009.

Earlier this month the Metropolitan Police was forced to pay Hoffman £30,000 in compensation in an out-of-the-court settlement and apologize to him for the "unprovoked" assault with a shield that left him with five broken teeth.

The force also acknowledged that the attack prevented Hoffman from covering the event freely in his professional capacity as is apparently the case with the Hassan Ghani's group.

Tom
Homepage: http://www.presstv.com/detail/154992.html

Comments

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Life gets stranger everyday!

11.12.2010 13:38

The police seem to be sinking into every darker and murkier waters.

Klamber

did you get any pictures?

11.12.2010 13:51

this story is v sparse on details..

where were you when you were attacked?
what time was it?
have you got any photos or footage of the people with the hammers?
what kind of hammers? long handles or short? made of wood/ metal/ plastic? were they inflatable?!
did you see where they went afterwards?
did you talk to any of the demonstrators who were also attacked by them?

you're a media group? and you can't even write a decent (or particularly believable) news story about something you've experienced?

wondering

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How long before someone is killed?

11.12.2010 14:01

Seems odd that no one is criticising the violence on Indymedia or are they being deleted by moderators? This mob violence is grim.

Anon

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good

11.12.2010 14:54

Press Tv are the propaganda arm of a government far more repressive than ours, a government that, among other things, rounds up protesters and rapes them.

They deserve everything they get.

anon

yeah, i'm no fan of Iranian state propaganda, but...

11.12.2010 15:00

....their coverage of the protests is still superior to our own state propaganda (ie the BBC) - see for example

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155011.html

oh dear

11.12.2010 15:20

s, is that it? thats okay because their coverage is more supportive than UK media coverage? do you have principles???

have you given one second's thought as to why they are supportive or what their agenda is?

they are NOT on our side.

alibi

undercover cops with large bags

11.12.2010 16:54

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBylsbaH4A0&feature=player_embedded

look at the two undercover cops helping the injured cop at 1m 06s

guy on the right has a large backpack on. guy on left is clearly wired up.

given undercover would have warrant cards so be able to slip in and out of cordons easily, what would they need a large backpack for? what's in it? what were they up to?

forensic

press pictures are used to grass people up

12.12.2010 03:24

The press are only interested in getting exciting images they can sell - even if it grasses someone up and they end up with a prison sentence. I don't know who this group is, but in general I'm not feeling sympathy for any press photographers who get a beating. You only have to look at coverage on the BBC news ste where they are publishing image of people alleged to have been rioting. I'm sure the scum from papers like the Sun are following suit.

As the saying goes: snitches get stitches.

anon

who do they think they are

12.12.2010 22:03

Beating people in mass demonstrations - who do the cops think they are, the Basiji thugs that the Republican National Guard used to bust up every anti-regime demonstration before, during, and after the fixed 'election' - dragging people off to prison and torture, with the full complicity of the same theocracy that runs (and heavily censors) 'PressTV'?

really

Don't hit me, but there are other possibilities

13.12.2010 11:09

A Telegraph (i think) reporter gave an account of this incident, and also described other students being attacked by other people on the demo.

Now, not that I always believe what reporters say, or that they are never mistaken over what they say they have seen, but there have been several reports over the course of the student demos of there being some scraps between people on the demo.

None of this means they were cops.

fyi

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