(IPYS/IFEX) – On 21 November 2006, the chief editor of the newspaper “El Impulso”, José Ángel Ocanto, was threatened with death by a man who identified himself as a member of the armed forces and the father of a child whose photograph had been published by the paper earlier that day. The assailant arrived at […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 21 November 2006, the chief editor of the newspaper “El Impulso”, José Ángel Ocanto, was threatened with death by a man who identified himself as a member of the armed forces and the father of a child whose photograph had been published by the paper earlier that day.
The assailant arrived at the newspaper’s offices and demanded that the editor tell him the name of the photographer. Ocanto was threatened when he refused to disclose this information. The photograph was used by the newspaper to illustrate the journalist’s op-ed piece on arms trafficking in the state of Lara, in southern Venezuela.
In it, the girl is lying on her back with a gun in her hands, accompanied by two adults, one of them the assailant. The three of them are wearing military uniforms. According to the newspaper’s version of events, the photo was not taken by any of its staff photographers, but was sent to the newspaper without any attribution or information about the sender. The man, who identified himself as the father of the girl in the photo, had not authorized its publication.
Ocanto told IPYS that the aggressor tried to strike him with a toy gun that he was carrying with him.
