Chavista Slaps Journalist Live Repeatedly

CARACAS,
Venezuela — A Venezuelan lawmaker repeatedly slapped a journalist in
the face during a television program Tuesday, accusing him of slander
after he wrote about the death of her infant son years ago.

Congresswoman Iris Varela stormed onto the set of Gustavo Azocar's
morning program on Tachira Regional Television, shouting: "I'm
demanding a right of reply from this man who has offended me all the
time on this program."

The on-air confrontation, in which Varela slapped Azocar several
times and then hit him with the microphone, grabbed national attention
in Venezuela and is likely to generate a wider debate in the country
about free speech issues and the news media.

Azocar is an outspoken critic of leftist President Hugo Chavez, and
Varela is one of Chavez's close allies in the National Assembly.

The lawmaker said her outrage had nothing to do with politics and
everything to do with a dishonorable airing of her private life. Azocar
recently wrote a book in which he recounted the death of Varela's
infant son in a hospital in the early 1990s and called it a determining
event in her life.

"He's offended me and he meddled with the most sacred thing, my dead
son, and that's why I came," Varela said, holding the microphone after
snatching it from Azocar.

A Venezuelan TV journalist watched in shock as his guest, a politican from President Chavez’s party, destroyed his studio and repeatedly attacked him for having offended her dead son. There is no English commentary on these clips of the live programme.

miamipress.net 

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