Managua – Four reporters, including a photographer for Spanish news agency EFE, suffered minor blows Thursday during a protest march in this capital by doctors, who have been on strike for more than four months to press demands for higher salaries.
Mario Medrano, a reporter with Channel 2 television in Managua, told EFE that he was struck by a protester after interviewing strike leader Elio Artola. EFE photographer Mario Lopez was also assaulted, receiving a forceful blow to the forehead.
Medrano said that, while he was conducting the interview, one of the demonstrators made an obscene gesture at him. When he subsequently tried to interview the person who insulted him, he said was met with violence, although none of the blows were serious.
The reporter added that the same demonstrator also attacked a La Prensa photographer and another unidentified journalist.
“All of these images are recorded,” said Medrano, who added he was surprised at the aggression because the media coverage has been balanced, “gathering versions of the strikers and of those affected by the protest.”
Following the incident, the strikers did not reveal the identity of the person responsible for the violence.
Members of the Pro-Salary Doctors’ Federation, which has been leading the months-long protest at hospitals and health centers across the country, staged the demonstration along Managua’s Avenida Universitaria.
Roberto Lopez, a strike leader, told EFE that he regretted that some reporters had been struck and would call and apologize to those affected by the aggression.
“We don’t have anything against the journalists,” said Lopez, who added that “the real guilty party in all this is the government for not seeking a quick solution to the strike.”
