Spanish police have arrested a man for allegedly sexually assaulting a journalist while she was reporting live on air in Madrid.
Isa Balado from the news broadcasting channel Cuartro was reporting on a robbery in Spain’s capital when a man approached her from behind. The man then grabbed Balado on the bottom and asked her which television channel she works for.
Balado pushed the man away as she tried to continue her reportage, but Cuatro’s host in the studio Nacho Abad interrupted.
“Isa, forgive me for interrupting you… but did he just touch your bottom?” he asked.
When Balado confirmed it, Abad told her to put the “idiot” on camera. Balado then confronted the man, who was still lingering to the side.
“As much as you want to ask what channel we are from, do you really have to touch my bottom? I’m doing a live show and I’m working,” Balado said.
The man denied touching her, and as he walked away, he tried to touch her on the head.
Agresión sexual en directo a la periodista @isabalado del programa @EnBocaDe_Todos de @cuatro. La tranquilidad con la que se queda el agresor ante la cámara y la condescendencia con la que le toca el pelo a su víctima cuando ella le recrimina los hechos. La sensación de impunidad pic.twitter.com/AtfGRYY1bS
— Miquel Ramos 🥘 (@Miquel_R) September 12, 2023
Balado apologised over the incident, but Abad said the man had “no right” to touch her.
“You have nothing to feel sorry for,” Abad said to Balado. “It makes me so mad.”
The incident comes amid what has been dubbed as Spain’s #MeToo movement, following Spanish football association’s (RFEF) former president Luis Rubiales non-consensually kissing Jenni Hermoso on the lips at the FIFA Women’s World Cup final ceremony last month.
After Spain won the FIFA Women’s World Cup against England 1-0, Rubiales grabbed Jenni Hermoso and pulled her in for a non-consensual kiss in front of a crowd of more than 75,000 and millions of people on television.
Although Rubiales resigned from his post as president of the RFEF on Monday, he said he would defend his “innocence”.
Spain’s acting equality minister Irene Montero condemned the incident involving Balado in a post on X (Twitter).
“What until now was ‘normal’ is no longer so. Non-consensual touching is sexual violence and we say enough to impunity,” she wrote.
Labour minister Yolanda Diaz pointed to “machismo”, the ideology that men are superior to and should exercise control over women, as the reason incidents like this happen regularly.
“It is machismo that makes journalists suffer sexual assaults like this, and the aggressors are unrepentant in front of the camera,” she wrote on X.
Mediaset España, the company that owns Cuatro, released a statement on Tuesday, saying the company called the police immediately.
“We fully support Isa Balado, reporter for En Boca de Todos, after the absolutely intolerable situation she has suffered today,” it read.
The Spanish police posted a video on X showing the man’s arrest. The authorities said the man was “arrested for sexually assaulting a reporter while she was doing a live television show”.