A group of protesters who oppose the Conga mining project attacked journalist Edwin Alzamora Vásquez, an employee of the mining project's communications department.
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 26 October 2011, a group of protesters from the district of Huasmín who oppose the Conga mining project attacked journalist Edwin Alzamora Vásquez, who works for the mining project’s communications department in the city of Cajamarca, in the northern Peruvian region that bears the same name.
Alzamora was covering the demonstrators’ visit to the area where the Conga project will extract gold and copper when some of them, on foot and on horseback, began whipping and hitting him with sticks. One of the protesters broke the video camera the journalist was using to film the incident, while another demonstrator seized his photographic camera and mobile phone. He was then forced to leave the area. He received injuries to one of his shoulders, his legs and his back during the assault.
Alzamora told IPYS that he had simply wanted to film the demonstrators’ arrival and the dialogue the mining company’s officials hoped to initiate to show them the mining area.
IPYS condemns assaults of this nature that limit journalist coverage of information.
