Jason N. Parkinson: Video Journalist

Following 18 days of a national uprising, that was repeatedly attacked by police and pro-government supporters and left more than 300 people dead, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today finally stepped down. He fled the country first, of course. Just hours later in Switzerland his complete assets were frozen.

The words of BBC reporter John Simpson said it all. The protestors just stood there and said no. And they won.

Tax Justice from PCS Union TV

As people filed their tax returns to the HMRC and others filed their earnings into tax havens the PCS Union release the first video newsletter targeting the £120bn tax loss.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

The Battle For Cairo

Following three days of peaceful mass protest, which ended in as many as eight million marching across Egypt and President Mubarak announcing he would not stand for re-election in September, Wednesday 2 February became the defining day for the Egyptian revolution.

Thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters massed outside the heavily defended state television centre. All the video I shot of the pro-demonstration was taken from the bridge due to the hostility of the crowd.

When we arrived there I was grabbed by one supporter, who tried to force me to pray to Allah. When I refused he accused me of being Israeli. This drew the attention of other supporters around him and it looked like I was about to be lynched, so we made a swift exit.

And it wasn’t long before the pro-Mubarak supporters were lynching people. As their march reached our hotel we tried to exit to start filming. Within seconds a group of 20 protestors started attacking a small group of women. One woman started running for the hotel door. We were pulled inside by the door security and they locked the door. We saw the woman’s screaming face smash into the glass. Arms and legs lashed out at her and she went down. The punches and kicks continued. The image of her terrified face is something I will never forget.

That incident also led to the initial coverage of this event from the hotel room with a barricaded door, as the area surrounding the hotel was swarming with thousands of Mubarak supporters. And we had already been pointed out as anti-Mubarak at the beginning of the protest, by a gang of what we believed were plain clothes police.

After several hours of fighting the pro-Mubarak protestors were pushed back and the Tahrir Square protestors quickly erected barricades. By nightfall elements, now known to be police, in the pro protestors opened fire with automatic rifles. The all too familiar crackle of AK-47 rounds sounded just 200 metres down the road as the battle went on into the night. More than a thousand were injured. Seven people were beleived to have been killed, all by gunfire.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

Battle for the Interior Ministry

Saturday 29 January 2011: Following the Day of Rage the police advanced from the streets surrounding the Interior Ministry into Tahrir Square early in the morning, firing whatever ammunition they had left into the gathering crowds.

This was by no means an attempt to regain the square, the police numbers clearly could not have made a dent in the protestors resilience, as the numbers of the crowds marching on the street after the attack indicated. The more the authorities hit them, the more they massed.

That night I learned the true extent of the secret police operation, according to several local journalists. The morning attack on the square was to direct the same outcome as the plain clothes officers in the square that day – to urge and encourage the protestors up the street towards the Interior Ministry, where police snipers were waiting, overlooking the street.

The bodies of the dead and injured poured into a backstreet mosque that had been turned into a makeshift hospital. By the end of that day local reports said 15 people were killed and the nearest hospital to the Downtown district had recorded more than 550 injuries.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

Night of Rage – Cairo

Following the afternoon’s narrow escape from the secret police and feeling the Tahrir protest was surrounded and most probably doomed, we decided to return to our hotel. Little did we know the next 12 hours of uprising would pan out right outside our first floor window.

This video rush shows the chaos and confusion that spanned that night of Friday 28 January, 2011. For us it was hard to understand, as the military were first greeted with burning barricades and stones, then with cheers and applause. Then ambulances were attacked and tanks charged at crowds of protestors while Mubarak’s party headquarters burned.

By Saturday night these scenes made more sense, as local journalists explained what had happened. Although the army were predominantly neutral to the Mubarak regime, there were certain elements that were supportive of the regime. Some tank brigades were part of this support, the Presidential Guard certainly were behind Mubarak. And it was these APCs and tanks that had charged the barricades to deliver more ammunition to the riot police still trying to hold Tahrir Square.

This was also the reason the ambulance was attacked, we were told. Protestors had checked the ambulance only to find boxes of tear gas inside. The boxes can be seen being lifted into the air following the attack on the ambulance.

For our team it was a tense and uncertain night, not knowing what the outcome would be or where the military stood. But we knew if the police won we were truly done for. So when they advanced and started firing again in the early hours of the morning we thought that was it. Not only did they shoot with tear gas and rubber bullets. Also sporadic AK-47 gunfire, that shot out our window sill and sent bits of concrete ricocheting around the room while we clung to the floor in gas masks. That was not the only night we barely slept.

Day of Rage video rush.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

Friday 28 January 2011: Video rush of the attacks by the thousands of riot police against the anti-government protestors in the back streets in Cairo, as the uprising attempted to regain Tahrir Square.

This video coverage was cut short after about two hours, when our team was caught between tear gas and live fire from shotguns at one end of the street and around 100 riot cops and a large group of secret police at the other. We were grabbed by the secret police, strangled and beaten to the ground, then marched out of the protest. We expected to be put in the waiting prison van and be driven into the desert. Instead, after shouting to watching crowds of people that we were British press the police took our memory cards and let us go, emphasising we get off the streets immediately. We did. Unfortunately they pulled the stills memory card from my camera and didn’t realise the camera was old-school DV tape. Hence this video.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.