A team of television journalists from Globovisión in Venezuela was threatened while covering attacks by supporters of President Hugo Hugo Chavez against opposition candidate Henrique Caprilles Radonski in Cotiza, a neighborhood in the capital city of Caracas, according to Globovisión.
The journalist Sasha Ackerman, cameraman Frank Fernandez, and assistant Esteban Navas were threatened at gunpoint by assailants dressed in the colors of Chavez's political party. The journalists also were forced to hand over their video equipment and the footage that showed Chavez's supporters shooting at people who had accompanied Caprilles, reported Rádio RCN.
“Of the gunmen attacked me and pointed a gun at me," said Ackerman, as quoted by the newspaper La Opinión. "The cameraman hid in a nearby house, but he was threatened" and the tapes showing the attack were taken, the journalist added.
Officials for Globovisión released a statement demanding police investigate the incident, which the TV station characterized as an "attack on the press and on the right to information for all Venezuelans." The statement also pointed out that this was not the first time Globovisión journalists were assaulted or robbed of their work materials.
