(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation after three members of a television crew from the privately-owned station TV Globo – Lúcio Sturm, Gilmário Batista and Marçal Queiroz – were beaten up ouside the national headquarters of the Brazil Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) in Sao Paulo. “We strongly condemn these serious assaults committed against […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation after three members of a television crew from the privately-owned station TV Globo – Lúcio Sturm, Gilmário Batista and Marçal Queiroz – were beaten up ouside the national headquarters of the Brazil Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) in Sao Paulo.
“We strongly condemn these serious assaults committed against journalists who were doing their job,” said RSF. “We congratulate the Sao Paulo police for managing to identify two of the three assailants. We regret, however, that one of them was released and that the interviews have not established a motive for the assault.”
The television crew was attacked on 22 June 2005 by three men shouting, “Lies, lies.” The assailants began the assault by kicking the crew’s truck as they were reporting on an internal crisis within the PT, President Lula da Silva’s party.
The attackers then turned on the crew, striking assistant cameraman Queiroz in the face with his camera tripod, breaking his left jaw and leaving him requiring reconstructive surgery. Sturm suffered ruptured ligaments to his right hand and bruises to the knee.
Batista, the cameraman, filmed the assault and handed over the tape to police, who were able to identify two of their three assailants. One of them, Flávio Rogério de Oliveira, was arrested the following day but released after naming an associate, Adriano Gomes da Silva, who was quickly arrested and imprisoned. Gomes da Silva, a postal services employee, was previously involved in a violent demonstration in Brasilia in 2003 in which windows were broken at the Planalto presidential palace. The third attacker, named as Claudiao, reportedly lives in Guarulhos, in Sao Paulo’s outer suburbs.
Police officers noticed that one of the assailants could be seen on the tape wearing the insignia of the bankers’ union. This union condemned the attack and denied any involvement. The PT described the incident as a “press freedom violation.”
