Kiwi journalist beaten up

This image of anti-Government protests in Egypt was taken by Kiwi Glen Johnson before he was beaten up by security forces. Photo / Glen Johnson

A Kiwi journalist has been beaten by security forces in the violent protests that have rocked Egypt this week, claiming about 30 lives.

Glen Johnson, a freelance journalist who has been in several Middle East hotspots in recent months, was set upon on the first day of the anti-Government protest action. The fourth straight day of street fighting yesterday forced President Hosni Mubarak to sack his Government.

Johnson was in Cairo taking photographs when he was hit: "One officer ran up shouting at me to leave. I told him I was a journalist. The first blow from his truncheon landed square across my shoulder blades as I turned from him."

Johnson, who trained at the Wintec journalism school in Hamilton, took more blows across his back.

"I fell to my knees and covered my head."

Talking to the Herald on Sunday some hours after the attacks, he said: "I'm a little banged up, but fine. Just some welts across my back and cuts on my arms."

He said the security forces were taking a heavy-handed approach. At one stage during the protests he was choking on tear gas and had to run.

"I stumbled down a street, hocking the gas from my lungs and barely able to open my eyes."

A man grabbed him and pulled him into a doorway. "There were around 30 people in the stairwell - young boys coughed into tissues, while one man lay hyperventilating on the floor."

The street battles entered their fourth day yesterday, with local media saying about 30 people had been killed.

At least 13 people were killed and 75 injured in the canal city of Suez, a hospital source said.

In Cairo, at least five people were killed and several hundred injured.

Reacting to the chaos, Mubarak yesterday appeared in a televised address to the nation. He said: "I have asked the Government to resign and tomorrow there will be a new Government."

Mubarak, in power for three decades, vowed to bring in "new measures" for democracy and justice without giving any indication of other changes.