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Alert

UN peacekeepers assault "Le Nouvelliste" photographer

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders condemned an assault by UN forces in Haiti on photographer François Louis, of the daily "Le Nouvelliste" as he was covering a demonstration in Port-au-Prince by supporters of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in which one person died.

Louis was set upon by Senegalese forces of the UN Stabilisation Force (Minustah) in Martissant, one of the capital's most dangerous suburbs, on 3 November 2006 as the ex-president's supporters marched, some of them threatening reprisals unless they were reinstated in their government jobs.

"The African soldiers forcibly held me, angrily ripping my shirt. They wanted to destroy the pictures I had taken because they were afraid their faces would be published in the paper, exposing them to be targeted by gangs", the photographer told Reporters Without Borders, adding that some of the photographs were ruined.

The UN forces often seem more concerned for their own safety than for the stabilisation of the country, Louis added.

"The Minustah forces have overstepped their mission in preventing a photographer from doing his job," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "This incident is made all the worse because the Minustah is supposed to protect people, journalists included, from gang violence. Brutality of this kind could at any moment tip the situation back into instability, which has already cost the press very dearly.

"The commander of the UN forces should apologise to the newspaper and punish the abuses of his subordinates," it added.

Around a thousand people have demonstrated since 1 November against the Minustah in Cité Soleil, Haiti's biggest shantytown, which is controlled by gangs.