Kazakhstan journalists attacked in Lebanon

A camera crew of Channel 1 Eurasia has been attacked in Beirut, Lebanon during shooting of a movie about the Arab Spring, Kapital reports. According to the project’s director Aleksandr Zamyslov, the incident happened in one of the southern suburbs of Beirut. The crew was recording an interview with The Time journalist Aisha Rayami who investigated illegal weapons supplies to Syrian and Lebanese opposition. Suddenly about 20 Lebanese drove up on cars and scooters. Supposedly they were members of a regional criminal group. They demanded that the crew deleted all the recoded materials. When the second director Vladislav Kolyosov tried to inconspicuously remove the memory card from the camera and hide it, the gang members hit him with a bat and broke his arm. Understanding that they would not be able to stay alive and keep the records, Zamyslov started negotiating with the gang’s leader. In broken English the criminal advised the journalists to pay them off and the crew had to part with all the cash they were carrying. The work on the movie has already been resumed.