Egyptian journalist shot dead after curfew

Al-Ahram reporter appears to have been the victim of an accidental shooting at a checkpoint, security sources say.

Egypt checkpoint night
Journalists are exempt from Egypt's dusk-to-dawn curfew [AP]

Egyptian security forces killed the bureau chief of a provincial office of state newspaper Al-Ahram after opening fire on a car they thought had tried to escape from a checkpoint enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew, security sources said.

In what appeared to be an accidental shooting because journalists are exempt from the curfew, Tamer Abdel Raouf, head of Al-Ahram’s bureau in Egypt’s Buhayra province, was shot dead on Monday while a journalist from another state newspaper, Al Gomhuriya, was injured, according to the sources.

They had made a U-turn to drive away from the checkpoint in the Delta town of Damanhour, alarming security forces who then opened fire, the sources told Reuters news agency.

Egypt’s government ordered the curfew, set to last for the next month, after security forces on Wednesday broke up two protest camps demanding the return of deposed President Mohamed Morsi.

Over 800 people, including more than 100 soldiers and police, have been killed since then.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies