Dominican police ´rat out´ leaders as anticorruption protests continue

Santo Domingo.- A lieutenantcolonel, identified only as V. Ortiz, on recorded with his cell phone the facesof the protesters to send via WhatsApp to his "boss" police chief EduardoA. Then, instead of first carrying out his Constitutional duty to protectcitizens who on Wednesday again formed a Human Chain Against Corruption.

"We gonna send thedata to the boss via guasá (WhatsApp)," one of the agents was heard saying,but whether it was in jest isn’t known.

Acento.com.do reportsthat Ortiz was then taped using WhatsApp to “rat on the protesters technologically,”focusing especially on the faces of movement leaders and people with pickets criticizingthe government.

The officer continued recordingthe faces with close-ups of the hundreds of protesters to keep his boss informed.

The police on Wednesdayagain cordoned off the National Palace as the grassroots movement heads the anticorruptionprotests in the capital and several other cities, including Santiago, now inits 8th straight week.