In a video from Ottawa, a broadcaster stares at the camera in silence as protesters surround him and scream expletives, calling him a liar and bellowing “freedom.”
Near the U.S. border in Surrey, B.C., a cameraman’s equipment is shoved off his shoulder and two men spit on him. A demonstrator follows another journalist closely, yelling that he is a “disgusting, filthy human being,” while police escort the reporter through a jeering crowd.
Experts and advocates say the treatment of journalists, captured in many cases on video, during recent protests against public health measures should be a wake-up call.
“What I’ve seen over the last two days has been absolutely sickening,” Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, said in an interview Sunday.
“This is what happens when you have brains scrambled by misinformation.”
Journalists are working in an unprecedented difficult situation in Canada right now, he said, with threats being hurled at the press both online and in person.
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