On display an average Chavista. this is nothing compared to what Journalists can expect

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.

Source: Fox 

 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.

Watch Video SKY

Filed under: Chavez, News, Politics, Reporter, Slap, Venezuela, journalists