Dominican Republic dailies: US Embassy impediment ´intolerance´

Santo Domingo.-Dominican Republic´s newspapers grouped in the SDD on Thursday called the USEmbassy´s barring newspaper Diario Libre´s coverage of an activity intoleranceand discrimination.

SDD president PersioMaldonado said the incident by US diplomacy in the Dominican Republic is also anattack on press freedom and freedom of expression.

He said what DiarioLibre did was use as a source a photo uploaded to social networks by one of theparticipants in the scene “which has angered the US embassy in the country.”

Diario Libre´s editorialon Thursday affirms that “the US embassy´s impediment stems from its publishinga photo of shirtless men taken by the s ambassador´s husband in the embassy poolthat went public on the Web.”

Maldonado called the “aggression”unfortunate, “since it´s a nation that raises freedom of expression as one ofthe fundamental values ??of democracy and which has also been generated by peoplewho are demanding equality in their human condition.”

"We consider it unfortunatethe impediment to Diario Libre journalists in their efforts to cover anofficial activity, as other media which had been convened there. The simpleexclusion of the medium already contains a discriminatory and repressivegesture."