Cops beat journalist at G20: report

It's been reported that a journalist for the Guardian got beaten up by the police, who refused to recognize his media credentials:

Jesse Rosenfeld, a Canadian activist journalist who has written opinion pieces on the G20 for the Guardian newspaper, has been arrested and possibly beaten, his friends and father say.

His girlfriend, Carmelle Wolfson, called Mr. Rosenfeld late Saturday night, only to have him tell her he was in police custody at the Novotel, where dozens of protesters were arrested en masse after a protracted sit-in.

“He said, ‘The cops are telling me that they’re going to arrest me. I’ve told them that I’m a journalist, but they’re not recognizing my press badge and they’re telling me that they’re going to arrest me,'” she said.

“Then he told me to get on the phone with his editor.”

Mr. Rosenfeld, a Canadian activist journalist based in Tel Aviv and Jaffa in Israel, was in Canada for the summer. Ms. Wolfson said he was on assignment from Britain's Guardian to cover the G20. He was also helping to organize the summit’s alternative media co-op, whose coverage has been sympathetic to protests.

Source. Admittedly, the police were a bit on edge following a riot, but that hardly justifies the treatment of Mr. Rosenfeld (witnessed, incidentally, by a TVO reporter).