MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Streets of Rome witness Brazilians love-hate relation with president Bolsonaro

Videos showed bodyguards jostling with journalists, pushing them out of the street while Bolsonaro took selfies and talked to his supporters

The Brazilian media has protested vehemently following the attacks by Jair Bolsonaro's bodyguards against special envoys and correspondents covering the president's trip to Rome for the G20 summit.

Bolsonaro has had a standing hostile relationship with the press and has long accused journalists of publishing fake news and treating him unfairly.

Apparently the attacks took place as the president was out on the streets of Rome on Sunday, meeting with supporters some of them dressed with the football national team shirts.

Videos of the incident recorded by reporters showed bodyguards jostling with the journalists, pushing them out of the street while Bolsonaro took selfies and talked to his supporters.

One of the videos taken by UOL journalist Jamil Chade showed chaotic scenes of the security staff shoving him as supporters of the president chanted abuses at reporters.

A security officer twisted his arm and snatched away his phone with which he had recorded the attacks, Chade claimed. Finally the officer threw the phone on the ground, which was recovered by Chade.

In another incident broadcast journalist Leonardo Monteiro of TV Globo was punched in the stomach and pushed by one of the bodyguards after asking Bolsonaro why he didn't attend any G20 events on Sunday, newspaper O Globo reported. Bolsonaro is also skipping the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

“Globo vehemently condemns the aggression against its correspondent Leonardo Monteiro and other colleagues in Rome and demands a complete assessment of responsibilities,” TV Globo said in a statement.

It wasn't clear whether the bodyguards, dressed in civilian clothes, were Brazilian or Italian.

Ana Estela De Sousa, Europe correspondent from the Brazilian daily Folha de S.Paulo accused she was “pushed and brutally treated” by the officers.

“It is unacceptable. We are going to file a complaint,” she complained. “In the 20 years that I have been covering trips of presidents and events of this type, nothing like this has ever happened to me.”