(FLIP/IFEX) – On 1 October 2002, workers belonging to Sintraemcali – the union for the public service company Emcali – assaulted Ricardo Chamorro, a photojournalist from the daily “El Caleño”. The incident occurred while the journalist was covering clashes between union members and public security forces in Cali, southwest Colombia. The workers had launched a […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – On 1 October 2002, workers belonging to Sintraemcali – the union for the public service company Emcali – assaulted Ricardo Chamorro, a photojournalist from the daily “El Caleño”. The incident occurred while the journalist was covering clashes between union members and public security forces in Cali, southwest Colombia.
The workers had launched a day-long protest in several parts of the city. One of the locations was the Emcali plant in Alcantarillado, located northeast of Cali, where approximately 400 workers had begun to gather since the early morning. According to information provided to FLIP by other journalists on the scene, police confronted the protesters with tear gas. Shots were also fired; however, it was not possible to determine from where they originated.
At around 3:00 p.m. (local time), Chamorro took photos of Sintraemcali President Luis Hernández while other journalists were interviewing him. According to Chamorro, those were the only pictures he took of those who took part in the protest. At that moment, there were no violent confrontations, only some burned tires and groups of protesters on the street.
Chamorro told FLIP that as he was preparing to leave the area, several masked men blocked his way and tried to take his camera. Chamorro fought back to ensure that none of his equipment would be stolen. He said that one of the men carried a firearm in a bag and insulted him in an obscene manner. The men demanded that he identify himself, so Chamorro took out his press card, at
which time, he said, they snatched it away from him violently. As the union’s press officer, Giovanni Serrano, was calling “El Caleño” to verify Chamorro’s identity, the workers forced the journalist to enter the plant, where he was hosed down with water and verbally assaulted for several minutes. His film was confiscated and his equipment sustained damages.
According to Serrano, the workers’ state of unrest and Chamorro’s unmannerly response caused the incident, which Sintraemcali directors condemned. Serrano claimed that Chamorro had taken photos of the workers’ faces and bore no vest or card that identified him as a journalist.
In the past, Sintraemcali has said that members of the public security forces pass themselves off as journalists in order to film workers who participate in these types of protests.
This is not the first time that Emcali workers have behaved aggressively towards journalists. On 5 April 2000, a similar incident occurred when photographers Carlos Chavarro, of the daily “Occidente”, and Marco Antonio Ayala, of “El Caleño”, were physically assaulted. Ayala was murdered on 23 January 2002 for reasons that appear unrelated to his profession (see IFEX alert of 25 January 2002).
FLIP condemns this type of aggression against journalists and calls on all sectors of society to respect the profession, which seeks only to inform Colombian society.
