(IPYS/IFEX) – On 14 May 2008, in two separate incidents in Arequipa region, three journalists were assaulted. The journalist Leslie del Águila, correspondent of the newspaper “El Trome”, was beaten by relatives of Melgar FBC football team player Carlo Cancina, who has been accused by a witness of having participated in the theft of a […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 14 May 2008, in two separate incidents in Arequipa region, three journalists were assaulted.
The journalist Leslie del Águila, correspondent of the newspaper “El Trome”, was beaten by relatives of Melgar FBC football team player Carlo Cancina, who has been accused by a witness of having participated in the theft of a car.
The attack took place after a game between the teams Melgar and Alianza Lima. At the end of the game, the journalist approached Calcina to take his photograph, but his relatives, including his mother and a brother, attempted to seize her camera and struck her in the face and back.
The journalist filed a complaint at the Palacio Viejo police station in Arequipa.
In a second incident on the same day, “El Búho” weekly journalist José Luis Márquez Villalobos was assaulted by Jhon Bustinza Maydana and his wife Yolanda Becerra after Márquez asked about their involvement in a bid for a contract at the San Agustín National University. The event took place outside the university campus. Bustinza hit the journalist and destroyed his camera.
The police took the assailants and the journalist to the police station in Santa Martha, where a group of reporters gathered to cover the event. According to the journalists’ testimony, sheriff Francis Alarcón Gallegos threw the journalists out, insulting them without provocation, and attacked “La República” reporter Christian Ticona Coaguilla.
Ticona filed a complaint against the sheriff and the case is being investigated by the Police’s Inspector’s Office.
