Dominican President’s bodyguard stokes Education row

Santo Domingo.- The grass roots push to demand that the Government allocate the lawful 4% of the GDP to the education sector took a strange twist on Friday, when an agent of president Leonel Fernandez’s security detail tried to confiscate the purse of CDN TV reporter Esperanza Ceballos, for having a sticken with the campaign’s logo.

The incident occurred as the journalist entered the Supreme Court (SCJ) building, where she went to cover a ceremony to mark the Day of the Judicial Branch.

“They told be that I couldn’t enter the building with that purse because of the sticke on it. But that was an accessory that I had placed on the purse months ago and an officer had never admonished me for having it,” Ceballos said.

Meanwhile the Presidency admitted the incident and affirmed that the agent exceeded her functions when she asked Ceballos to remove from her purse the sticker of the Coalition for a Dignified Education.

“In relation to the order of the official that Ceballos remove the sticker from her purse, it was a request that exceeded her attributions,” it said.