A reporting team for the Venezuelan television broadcaster RCTV was attacked at the Central University of Venezuela's (UCV in Spanish) communications school while covering violence that erupted after the release of student election results on Jan. 18, reported the organization Public Space.
Reporter Miroslava Gómez, cameraman Simón Rodríguez, and his assistant Jhonatan Bello were held at gunpoint and their equipment was stolen.
According to the victims, the attack took place after the team recorded two hooded men throwing tear gas bombs by the exit of the school auditorium as the student election results were announced, according to the website La Patilla.
The men throwing the bombs approached the reporters and pulled out guns, telling them to stop filming. Meanwhile, two more individuals approached and, according to witnesses, held up the reporters, demanding their equipment.
The Brazilian National Association of Journalists denounced the event, calling it an attack on access to information and the practice of journalism, and demanded action from university authorities. UCV also repudiated the attack, referring to it as an "act of vandalism," according to the RCTV website.
