Washington:
Concerned over the reports of detention and harassment of journalists and human rights activists in strife-torn Egypt, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked the Egyptian authorities to ensure that no such action is taken against them.
Clinton conveyed this tough message in a telephonic call to Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, the State Department said.
"She stressed that incidents of harassment and detention of activists, journalists and other elements of civil society must stop," the department said.
"The Secretary emphasized the need to ensure that the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people are met, and that a broad cross-section of political actors and civil society have to be a part of the Egyptian-led process," it said.
During the 14-day old uprising against Mubarak's rule, several foreign journalists, including Indians, were detained, beaten up and harassed.
Later, in an interview to CNN, Shafik assured that international journalists or human rights activists in the country would not be harassed.
"I insist to assure all the authorities here not to ban anyone or not to bother anyone doing his work. But during some periods as such the period we are passing now, it's rather difficult to be sure 100 per cent that this man or either man gets some bad behavior concerning the foreigners here, and he doesn't understand their work or their job or something like that," he said.
"So we have to excuse him for such action done with this group because this is not at all intended, my dear. And we insist to cover this point. I repeat again, hopefully that this phenomenon will not be existing after that," Shafik said.
The Prime Minister hoped that the situation in the country would get better.