Jason N. Parkinson: Video Journalist

This week’s belated Report Digital covers most the month of library uploads and coverage.

As Climate Rush called the Spring Clean action outside DEFRA, that saw their security overstepping the mark on restricting filming in a public place, the 2008 storming of parliament went into the online archive.

More  2010 student protests also went into the online archive, this time the Student Siege of Millbank Tory Headquarters and the night scenes from December 9 on Whitehall.

More Egypt archive footage from the Battle of Cairo also went in.

Coverage this month covered the Leyton Marsh protest eviction, the DPAC Trafalgar Square blockade, Olympic Security Concerns and the Tottenham Court Road siege by far right BNP supporter.

More footage is available from reportdigital.co.uk

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

The Report Digital weekly covers the pro and anti-Syrian regime protests on the anniversary of the uprising in London and the UK Uncut protests on budget day around Westminster, including the heckling of Conservative Communities Secretary Eric Pickles.

The Report Digital online video library is now up and running. For access to the library please contact John Harris to obtain a log in password.

Now comes the incredibly long task of digitising and uploading the seven year catalogue of material, most of which is sat on DVCam tape. Current on among the library footage we have the Egyptian Revolution, London Riots, Greece Riots, Dale Farm, Student Protests, Occupy Movement, and Syrian Protests.

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

One year ago on February 11 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak finally resigned after an 18 day uprising that left more than 1000 dead and tens of thousands injured.

Day of Rage

Night of Rage

Battle for the Interior Ministry

Battle for Cairo

All material © Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to license this material.

Egypt: The Battle of Mohamed Mahmoud

The video review of 2011, the Egyptian Revolution – the Day of Rage, the Night of Rage, the Battle for the Interior Ministry, the Battle for Cairo – Los Indignados “Democracia Real Ya“occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the IMF riots in Athens, the London riots of Tottenham, Hackney and the Enfield vigilantes, the Dale Farm eviction and back to Egypt for the for the protests and riots against SCAF, the military controlled interim government.

Jess Hurd 2011 Review Photo Slideshow.

All material © Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

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

Guardian Video: Egyptian Military Defector

Two video rushes from the recent unrest in Cairo as the country began the long and much contested road into the national elections. The first film was shot at night and the police cut the power to Mohamed Mahmoud street. This led to some complicated and dangerous filming, overcoming pitch black sections of the street, a hail of unknown gas and live rounds fired from an unseen enemy less than fifty metres away.

The second rush follows protestors as they battle with police on Mohamed Mahmoud street for the fifth day on 23 November, eventually pushing the police back to the Interior Ministry and a ceasefire being put in place. That cease fire lasted about two hours.

Jess Hurd Photo Galleries

Uprising Against The Military

Martyrs Day

Original video rushes and posts from the #Jan25 uprising.

Day of Rage

Night of Rage

Battle of the Interior Ministry

The Battle of Cairo

Photo Gallery 1: Jess Hurd
Photo Gallery 2: Jess Hurd

The Reader: The Revolution Is Being Televised

LPB: Attacks on Media Workers in Egypt

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

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

This is the teaser trailer for the work-in-progress documentary #JAN25. Using footage covering the first week of the uprising that has been nominated for the 2011 Rory Peck News Awards, with interviews from those caught in the violence on the streets and those caught trying to report the events – tense, shocking and often murderous moments unravel during those days of the Egyptian revolution.

Having traveled to Egypt twice so far, first in January as the uprising occurred, then in March as the Egyptian constitutional referendum was voted on and the first attacks on the Coptic Christian minority after the revolution were reported, a third trip is now planned to cover the events leading up to and after the general election.

It will be these final days that will determine the mood of the documentary and decide whether it will be a positive end to the Egyptian revolution for the people or will interim military government SCAF take full control of the country, or will Egypt become a hardline Islamic state, as Western interests fear?

In order to finish this documentary we are now seeking interest and funding. For further information please contact  Jason N. Parkinson.

Original video rushes and posts.

Day of Rage

Night of Rage

Battle of the Interior Ministry

The Battle of Cairo

Photo Gallery 1: Jess Hurd
Photo Gallery 2: Jess Hurd

The Reader: The Revolution Is Being Televised

LPB: Attacks on Media Workers in Egypt

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

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

The Rory Peck Award finalists were announced on Monday 12 September. It turns out I’ve made it to one of the three finalists of the news section for the coverage of the Egyptian revolution. The rushes above are those that were sent out of Cairo by one of the few working Internet connections in the city during the uprising, after President Mubarak closed all communications to the outside world. Unfortunately for him, he missed a few.

Previous Footage and posts.

Day of Rage

Night of Rage

Battle of the Interior Ministry

The Battle of Cairo

Photo Gallery 1: Jess Hurd
Photo Gallery 2: Jess Hurd

The Reader: The Revolution Is Being Televised

LPB: Attacks on Media Workers in Egypt

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

This video rush captures some of the shots taken while stuck at the Rafah Crossing at the mercy of one Egyptian military general.

The border control had become a playground for Bedouin children and a micro-economy for the Bedouin people living around the Egyptian/Gaza border. The men run bags and goods on trolleys for people passing through the border for one Egyptian pound each time (10 pence). The women sold fresh and dried nuts, seeds and beans.

It was well known throughout the Bedouin the main trade was through the tunnels. It was the largest economy along the border. Under pressure from Israel, the Egyptian authorities built a wall along the entire southern border that cut four metres went into the ground.

Did this stop the tunnels? No. They just dug down twenty metres, underneath the subterranean wall. When people learned we were being stopped from entering Gaza, some offered us the tunnels, jokingly. When desperation took hold and I finally asked about the tunnels, nearly all told me it had become so dangerous in recent weeks that no one would take us through. That week, just before we arrived at the Rafah crossing 19 people had been shot and killed exiting a tunnel into Gaza. One thing we learned very quickly from the Bedouin, many things happened on the border that would never get reported wider than by word of mouth. Like the Israelis shooting the Egyptian military. This was local news only.

The Bedouin are very simple people. They want nothing to do with cities, technology and all the noise and chaos that come with it. They prefer the desert, the quiet and to farm the land – which is not an easy thing to do in a desert. The water sits some sixty metres down in the sand and the only way to extract it is with an extensive water pump system that costs in the region 20,000 Egyptian pounds, nearly twice the average annual wage.

But the Bedouin do not earn an average wage due to their status in Egyptian society. Just like in Israel, they are considered second class citizens, criminals, violent – something to be feared. They earn around 100 Egyptian pounds a day, half the wage of an Egyptian. Those scraping a living on the Rafah crossing earn substantially less. Their living standards and housing reflect this, ignored by the previous regime and certainly no support given to irrigate the desert for agriculture. Add to that brutality the Bedouin faced daily from state security under Mubarak, beaten, arrested, extorted, banished from nearby cities. Their old way of life, that of nomadic tribes had more or less been made illegal, if not just impossible.

But for all the negative talk we heard before leaving for the Rafah Crossing we found the Bedouin, inviting, friendly and warm, quiet, respectful people who just wanted to be left alone to live their lives. Nothing more, nothing less.

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

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

Egyptian military checkpoint at Rafah Crossing

In the days that protests calling for unification between Hamas and Fatah broke out across West Bank and Gaza, missiles struck Gaza City and machine gun fire regularly rang out along the Rafah crossing, myself and photographer Jess Hurd spent several days trying to get from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, to no avail.

The main point of contention for Egypt, we were told, was the fear of anyone (especially foreign journalists) crossing the border, being killed by the Israeli military and drawing Egypt further into an already tense stand-off.

Whilst stuck on the border east Gaza City was struck with missiles by F16 jets, killing at least two people, a fisherman was shot by naval forces on the coast and agricultural land in East Rafah was occupied.

Scores of people had been killed in tunnel crossings recently and there were even reports that some Egyptian troops had been shot in border skirmishes with the Israeli military. Machine gun fire had become a daily occurrence according to the Bedouin children we spoke with. Anyone who strayed too close to the border was regularly shot at from anonymous grey watch towers peering over from the other side of the wall.

Rafah Crossing

Still, these days stranded in the desert were spent sat around learning about the Bedouins, who had devised their own micro-economy around the border crossing. The women and young girls sold seeds, beans and nuts, the men and boys carried bags and goods from the Egyptian side to the the Palestinian side for one Egyptian pound (10 pence) each way. The most common daily wage in Egypt is 20 pounds (£2). There was also a very lucrative taxi service to Egyptian Rafah, Al Arish and Cairo.

We also learned about the treatment of Bedouins by Mubarak’s police. Extortion, racism, false arrest, arbitrary imprisonment, beatings, torture and murder were all commonplace.So, it came as no surprise to learn all the police were chased out of the Sinai region during the revolution by heavily armed Bedouin, some were killed, and all checkpoints and police stations were burned to the ground.

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

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

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.