Journalists want security official to resign

PANAMA’S JOURNALISTS associations have called for the head of a security official following the detention of two journalists by the police on Tuesday June 11.

The incident is creating a new wave of tensions between journalists' and the government said a front page lead In La Estrella, June 13,

The newspaper said the latest tensions have developed because of the actions of the secretary of the National Security Council (CNS), Alejandro Garuz when two TVN journalists were prevented from doing their work in the vicinity of the central core of the Council on the slopes of Cerro Ancon, “in a peaceful and residential area known as Quarry Heights.”
Journalists Elizabeth Gonzalez Filemon Medina and cameraman Bolivar Jurado were held about two hours on a decision, by Garuz who had previously attacked Medina, secretary general of the Union of Journalists, when he tried to record what was happening said La Estrella.
Yesterday journalistic unions unison, called for the resignation of Garuz: “It is a serious attack on freedom of expression and democratic stability of the country,” said a statement of the National Journalists Association.
Legal experts agree that Alejandro Garuz, and the agents who accompanied him at the 'Quarry Heights incident” violated articles of the Constitution.
Garuz said he ordered the detention because the journalists were in a 'restricted area'.