NYT Reporter: I Was Assaulted by Pakistani Agents

ABC News ^ | December 26, 2006 | Gretchen Peters

[ricks_place]

New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall tells ABC News she was assaulted by plain-clothed government security agents while reporting in Quetta, a Pakistani city near the Afghan frontier where NATO suspects the Taliban hides its shadow government.

Akhtar Soomro, a freelance Pakistani photographer working with Gall, was detained for five-and-a-half hours. According to Gall, the agents broke down the door to her hotel room, after she refused to let them enter, and began to seize her notebooks and laptop. When she tried to stop them, she says one of the men punched her twice in the face and head.

"I fell backwards onto a coffee table smashing the crockery," she recalled in a written account of the incident. "I have heavy bruising on my arms, on my temple and my cheekbone, and swelling on my left eye and a sprained knee."

Gall says the agents accused her and Soomro of trying to meet the Taliban. They identified themselves as working for Pakistan's Special Branch, an undercover police department, but Gall said other local reporters identified them as employees from one of the country's two powerful spy agencies: Inter-Services Intelligence or Military Intelligence.

[ricks_place]

Pakistan declines to support a reporters right to associate with terrorists.

[L98Fiero]

That's kind of what I got from this article.

[Lazamataz]

You can hardly blame them.

Who WOULDN'T assault a New York Times correspondent?

[yobid]

Terrorist cheerleaders take one for their team. What's the story here?

[happinesswithoutpeace]

Oh...how tragic.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[fish hawk]

They assault us with their treasonous articles but they don't like it when they are assaulted.

[toddlintown]

Carlotta Gall

I'll bet.

[prophetic]

oh cry me a river....

Somehow I feel that the treatment they got fell a little bit short somehow.....

Thoughts of Mr Berg's head getting painfully cut off at the hands of terrorists somehow comes back to mind.........

[ARealMothersSonForever]

"I have heavy bruising on my arms, on my temple and my cheekbone, and swelling on my left eye and a sprained knee."

It just Galls the NYT to no end when their "journalists" are persuaded to reveal a source.

[jazusamo]

It was the first reported incident of Pakistani agents belting a female reporter.

She said she was hit when she tried to stop them from taking her notebooks. I have a feeling she's not telling us the whole story of what she said and did.

[bert]

Her twin sister is Alotta Gall.

I wonder if she is a Brit that strings for the OGW?

[Plains Drifter]

You're right on the Money,I hope they din't get a skin infection!!!

[cardinal4]

Pakistan declines to support a reporters right to associate with terrorists.

Thats how I see it, too..

[raftguide]

Lets see here! You associate with people who cut American's heads off while they're still alive, but if some government agent--one from a country friendly to your own--punches you in the nose because of your interferance in his job, laws, and customs you get upset? I thought NYTimes reporters were bright enough people to avoid such cultural relativism.

[PA Engineer]

On the left photographed with mom. A google search makes it clear she is a well funded leftard.

[BW2221]

I wonder how the NYT will report this. My guess is that it won't.

[CottShop]

And I spotted a red hot stove top and stuck my hand on it nad got burned- what's yer point reporter? You went into a hostile hotzone region and got burned? Shocking! http://sacredscoop.com

[siunevada]

I thought NYTimes reporters were bright enough people to avoid such cultural relativism.

Diversity - it's a beautiful thing. Until it beats the stuffing out of you.