Weston Jacson Ibarra Méndez was attacked while covering a judicial procedure involving the mayor of the town of Chiquián.
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 6 September 2011, journalist Weston Jacson Ibarra Méndez, editor of the magazine “Zona Crítica” in Huaraz, was brutally attacked by a group of demonstrators when he was covering a judicial proceeding involving Juan Ernesto Rivera Alzamora, mayor of Chiquián, in the Ancash region of northern Peru.
Ibarra told IPYS that he was in Chiquián’s main square filming scenes of the demonstrators who support the mayor when they attacked him, taking his camera from him and hitting him until he was semiconscious. The police and judicial authorities were indifferent and refused to provide him with protection to leave the district.
The journalist suffered internal injuries as a result of the beating and requires medical treatment. The aggressor who took the camera has already been identified and a police report has been filed, but the journalist’s equipment has not been returned because, according to the assailants, “it’s a war trophy”.
IPYS condemns the attack against Ibarra and asks that the authorities provide him with the necessary protection.
