(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has protested the 19 April 2005 assault on cameraman José Luis Conde, of Bolivisión television station, by a military policeman and an officer during a ceremony at the military academy in La Paz. “A military facility is not above the law. We firmly condemn this abuse of authority and act of violence […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has protested the 19 April 2005 assault on cameraman José Luis Conde, of Bolivisión television station, by a military policeman and an officer during a ceremony at the military academy in La Paz.
“A military facility is not above the law. We firmly condemn this abuse of authority and act of violence by two soldiers, one of them an officer, against a journalist who was just doing his job,” the organisation said.
“We call on the armed forces high command to conduct an investigation and shed full light on this assault, and to punish in an appropriate manner those responsible, as indeed it has already undertaken to do,” RSF added.
Conde was filming a ceremony at the military academy when a military policeman suddenly stopped him. “The soldier, named Daniel Castro Revollo, ordered me to stop, claiming it was forbidden to film what I was shooting. But I was filming the same thing as all the other journalists present, and I replied that I was doing my job,” Conde told RSF. A lieutenant who witnessed the exchange sided with the soldier and threatened Conde. “He shouted at me, ‘Piece of shit, do you know who we are?’,” Conde said. They forced Conde into a nearby barracks. “There, they grabbed my camera, pulled the cassette out and broke it. Then the lieutenant struck me four or five times in the face.”
Conde said that, although there were no witnesses, “immediately afterwards, my assailants seemed to get worried and asked me to say nothing.” On 27 April, the cameraman reported the incident to the armed forces high command. Commander-in-chief Luis Aranda Graneros promised sanctions. Journalists’ unions and associations in La Paz have been expressing their support for Conde since 21 April.
