(IPYS/IFEX) – On 20 November 2008, a group of journalists and camera operators were watched and made uncomfortable by Parliament security personnel when they were attempting to cover a meeting that was taking place in one of the offices of the National Assembly’s Legislative and Auditing Commission (Comisión de Legislación y Fiscalización), better known as […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 20 November 2008, a group of journalists and camera operators were watched and made uncomfortable by Parliament security personnel when they were attempting to cover a meeting that was taking place in one of the offices of the National Assembly’s Legislative and Auditing Commission (Comisión de Legislación y Fiscalización), better known as the “Congresillo”, in Quito, Ecuador’s capital city.
The journalists were called to cover the session in which the project about the creation of a Financial Security Network was presented and to which the President of the Board of the Central Bank, Carlos Vallejos, was invited. However, they were not able to do their jobs because four policemen kept watch over them and eventually moved them to a corner of the hall behind security barriers.
The security personnel even escorted the journalists in the building’s elevators. The security personnel’s objective was to prevent any of them from getting out on a floor where they are not permitted, according to the security measures that have been adopted in the headquarters of the Legislative and Auditing Commission and which have sparked protests from the Ecuadorian press.
Faced with these security measures, the group of 15 journalists left the hall as a show of protest.
For further information on security measures recently adopted by the National Assembly commission, see: http://ifex.org/en/content/view/full/98439/
