Tempers flare at Cayo registration office
On yesterday’s newscast we reported on the last minute rush of applicants for Belizean citizenship, with the expectation that they would quickly go and register to vote. Last night in San Ignacio an attempt to monitor that registration process was met with more than just a verbal protest. Patrick Jones reports.
According to S.E.N. TV journalist Emil Rodriguez, he was in the middle of an assignment, as these pictures show, when he was the target of an attack..
Emil Rodriguez, Journalist
“I was doing a video documentation for the television station in San Ignacio. I was videoing the registration that was happening at the office when all of a sudden a young lady came out of the office, I was outside at this time, and she slapped my camera and she also slapped me.”
The woman in question has been identified as Inesita Fernandez, daughter of Cayo North representative Salvador Fernandez. Although she claims that the videographer got in her face, a closer look at the incident from a different angle seems to suggest that the attack was indeed unprovoked.
Q: “What reason would the young lady have for assaulting you, for attacking you the way she did?”
Emil Rodriguez
“Well obviously there was something funny going on there at the registration office that they didn’t want documented on the video and this is what I was doing and this is probably why the assault was made on me.”
The incident took place shortly after seven o’clock Tuesday night in the Election and Boundaries Office on West Street in San Ignacio. A number of people were being brought in for last minute registration and the TV station, owned by P.U.P. candidate Daniel Silva, wanted to document what was being done. Rodriguez says the attack is the continuation of a trend he finds disturbing.
Emil Rodriguez
“This is certainly a continuing trend. Prior to this I was the editor of the newspaper in San Ignacio and we had threats then, I don’t know by whom, but there were certainly threats. And the radio station was broken up in San Ignacio and various other assaults have been made against the press in Cayo and throughout Belize. And so we believe that this is just another in a continuing pattern of incidents and attacks against the press here in Belize.”
Rodriguez says he has already retained the services of a lawyer and plans to take the matter to court. Patrick Jones for News Five.
Our calls to Inesita Fernandez in Cayo were not returned, but this morning on Love FM she told listeners that Rodriguez had shoved the camera in her face and she just lashed out as a reaction. Fortunately nobody was hurt and the camcorder survived, presumably to fight another day.
