(Periodistas/IFEX) – On 5 July 2000, journalist Germán Dellamonica, of the LT 9 Brigadier Lopez de Santa Fe radio station, was punched and kicked while covering an event led by the leader of the General Labour Confederation’s (Confederacion General del Trabajo, CGT) dissident sector, Hugo Moyano. Prior to the attack, various individuals attending the event […]
(Periodistas/IFEX) – On 5 July 2000, journalist Germán Dellamonica, of the LT 9 Brigadier Lopez de Santa Fe radio station, was punched and kicked while covering an event led by the leader of the General Labour Confederation’s (Confederacion General del Trabajo, CGT) dissident sector, Hugo Moyano.
Prior to the attack, various individuals attending the event had been hostile towards the press for a number of hours, repeatedly insulting them. At one point, the group climbed onto the platform set up for the press. One of the assailants punched Dellamonica, knocking him to the ground, and began kicking him. The journalist, a member of the Santa Fe Press Association’s board of directors, was taken to hospital, where he remained for observation for more than one day.
Some hours after the incident, the police arrested a Santa Fe municipality employee, one Sergio Raúl Pereyra, who was caught beating Dellamonica on tape. According to “La Nacion” daily, Pereyra is closely linked to the assistant secretary of the CGT local, Hugo Ghío, although the latter publicly denied knowing Pereyra. “On the images caught on film by the television cameras, Ghío is seen as one of the persons walking close to Moyano before the event began, and later appears to be opening a car door,” Eduardo Burba, secretary-general of the Santa Fe Press Association, informed PERIODISTAS.
Burba noted that, as of 9 June, the press association stopped actively participating in the CGT, after militant members of the Confederation threw a firecracker at the LT 9 premises.
“Since that time, the activities of some labour movement sectors have intensified, and they are using a methodology which we do not support,” Burba explained. “Our role is to ensure that our colleagues can freely practise their profession, without being subject to the interests of particular trade-union sectors.” After Dellamonica was attacked, all those journalists who were present expressed their dismay by withdrawing from the event.
