(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 11 December 2006, a group of former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s supporters insulted and threw objects at Televisión Española’s team of journalists, led by reporter María José Ramundo, while they covered the general’s funeral at the Military School in Santiago de Chile. One of the supporters hit Ramundo in the […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 11 December 2006, a group of former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s supporters insulted and threw objects at Televisión Española’s team of journalists, led by reporter María José Ramundo, while they covered the general’s funeral at the Military School in Santiago de Chile. One of the supporters hit Ramundo in the face and another one snatched away her microphone in order to insult the Spaniards, shouting slogans against Judge Baltazar Garzón, who gave the order to arrest the dictator in London in 1998. The policemen who were protecting the military headquarters did not stop the assault.
On 12 December, while the funeral was taking place in the military facility, some of those attending assaulted the Televisión Nacional Channel 7 team of reporters and journalist Mónica Pérez. One of them cut a power cable, which stopped the broadcast for a few minutes. They also assaulted a journalist from the Argentinean network TELEFE after he mentioned the word “dictator” when referring to Pinochet.
In her first speech after the general’s death, President Michelle Bachelet condemned the attacks against the press by the “Pinochetistas”.
Journalists were continually assaulted during the days that followed the former Army Commander-in-Chief’s death. Fanatics hold the media responsible for the dictator’s bad public image, according to IPYS.
