“Journalist Danny Gómez, who was covering a police operation in the Mejoramiento Social neighborhood, [in the city of Santiago], was assaulted by a colonel of the [Dominican Republic] National Police. The incident occurred when Gómez was filming at the entrance to the Santiago Rodríguez General Hospital, where the police were preventing the entry and registration of people who were hurt and taken to the medical center after a police operation [...]. In the middle of this, Colonel Abreu abruptly snatched Gómez's phone from him and shouted insults at him.
This incident adds to a series of recent aggressions against journalists documenting police actions in the north of the country. Just last Monday [Sept. 23], Inocencio Encarnación, a journalist with Teleuniverso Canal 29, was assaulted in Santiago while covering a traffic accident. Despite having identified himself as a journalist, Encarnación was violently restrained by an agent of the Cibao Central Regional Police Department.
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Faced with this situation, organizations such as the Dominican College of Journalists and the Inter American Press Association have demanded immediate action to stop the violence against reporters and to guarantee the safety of press professionals in the exercise of their informative work.”
