Bolivia

BOLIVIA The media described as "a surprise attack on the press" a statement by President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada September 25 that the Boliian press should exercise" a responsible handling of its terrible power" and charging that newspapers "still are not committed to the enormous responsibility their authority entails." The president was speaking at the formal opening of new building of the newspaper El Deber of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to which he was invited together with Paraguayan President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, on an official visit to the city at the time. Recent national opinion polls meanwhile showed that Bolivians put the media above the Catholic Church and the government in terms of credibility. A new telecommunications law calls for the regulation of radio stations, many of them currently clandestine, and sets fines and other penalties for "pirate" television stations. Four reporters were roughed up inn street demonstrations in La Paz October 3. Martin Alipaz a photographer with the Jatha news agency, was hit and injured by a tear-gas grenade fired at pointblank range by a police officer as he treid to photographer a demonstration. He was rushed to hospital. Demonstrators mobbed a Channel 11 TV van and tried to attack one of its passengers, reporter Jorge Tejerano. Reporters Roberto Patino of the daily Ultima Hora and Wilma Perez of the EFE news agency were tear-gassed by a policeman as they were protesting mistreatment of a child.