(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 17 October 2001, a chamber of the Buenos Aires Appeals Court Criminal Cases Division annuled the prosecution of politician Juan Manuel Trezza. Trezza assaulted journalist Daniel Tognetti during a 17 October 1999 political rally. At the time, the journalist was attacked by a group of individuals who had arrived at the Plaza […]
(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 17 October 2001, a chamber of the Buenos Aires Appeals Court Criminal Cases Division annuled the prosecution of politician Juan Manuel Trezza. Trezza assaulted journalist Daniel Tognetti during a 17 October 1999 political rally.
At the time, the journalist was attacked by a group of individuals who had arrived at the Plaza de Mayo square in a van rented by the event’s organisers. The event formed part of the presidential campaign of Eduardo Duhalde, of the Partido Justicialista (PJ) party. The journalist, who worked for the television programme “Caiga Quien Caiga”, broadcast on the América television station, was punched in the face and suffered bleeding and a cut lip.
The incident was captured by the television station’s cameras and it was therefore possible to identify the assailants. Some weeks later, three witnesses picked Trezza out of a police line-up. Upon evaluating the video clips, witnesses’ testimonies and the results of a medical examination, the first instance judge prosecuted Trezza for damages.
Nevertheless, two years after the attack, Judges Carlos Gerome and Alfredo Barbarosch of the Fourth Chamber of the Buenos Aires Appeals Court Criminal and Correctional Division dismissed the evidence and decided to drop the case against Trezza. The judges also questioned Tognetti’s conduct, alleging that he had hit one of Duhalde’s supporters. In fact, the individual in question, Luis Márquez, testified that Tognetti had only pushed him, “as he was trying to defend himself.”
PERIODISTAS condemned the ruling in a press release, pointing out that “to investigate the victim’s conduct is a condemnable practice, as we already saw after the assassination of our colleague José Luis Cabezas,” who was killed in January 1997 (see IFEX alerts of 4 February 2000, 13 December, 19 November and 26 January 1999, 14 December and 30 January 1998 and others).
The organisation noted that this “intentional reversal of what happened ends up by blaming the journalist who was carrying out his duty and absolves of their responsibility those who attacked him because of his profession. This is a treacherous attack on press freedom and discredits those members of the legal profession who value loyalty to a party above their professional mission.”
Background Information
The “Day in Support of Peronism” (“Día de la Lealtad Peronista”) is celebrated each year on 17 October, by all supporters of the movement created under former president Juan Domingo Peron, the PJ party’s founder. In 1999, Duhalde, the PJ’s presidential candidate, decided to use this date to hold a campaign rally in the Plaza de Mayo square, a location which symbolises the history of social movements in Buenos Aires.
Thousands of supporters arrived at the square, many of them in vehicles rented by the party. While he was reporting on the events for the television programme “Caiga Quien Caiga”, Tognetti and the station’s production team were surrounded by a group of ten to fifteen individuals who began to insult them.
“They came out of a minibus adorned with a ‘Duhalde-Ortega’ banner. Then, a van stopped in front of ours, to block the view, and the people from the minibus appeared. One of them punched me and fled running,” Tognetti recalled.
The assailants “had cards identifying them as members of the event’s organising team. They are people I see at every Duhalde rally or event, and are permitted to go behind the fenced VIP area restricted to party officials. They were not out-of-control thugs. They were following orders and knew what they were doing,” the journalist affirmed.
