By Isabela Fraga
Brazilian photographer Jean Schwarz for the newspaper Zero Hora was beaten while he tried to cover a meeting of road workers in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, on Jan. 22, reported the publication.
The meeting ended in a brawl that police are investigating. The Rio Grande do Sul Union of Professional Journalists (SINDJORS in Portuguese) and the National Federation of Journalists denounced the attack, which involved at least four individuals. The photographer filed a police report and was treated for his injuries.
"This kind of event hurts every professional [journalist] in Rio Grande do Sul and Brazil, since its objective is to restrict the freedom to report," SINDJORS said on its website. The press group added that it plans to file a complaint against the attackers, captured on a video taken by Grupo RBS, the owner of Zero Hora, with the Secretariat for Human Rights, which has a working group dedicated to attacks on press workers.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
