Authorities in Madrid arrested a man this week after he touched a reporter’s buttocks while she was in the middle of a live broadcast, according to police in Spain.
Isa Balado was reporting on a robbery in Madrid for channel Cuatro on Tuesday when the suspect approached her from behind and touched her rear end, video of the incident showed.
In two social media posts, Spain’s Policía Nacional confirmed an arrest.
In a Tuesday post on X, formerly known as Twitter, police posted a short video of two officers escorting a man who was handcuffed. The post said in Spanish: detained for sexually assaulting a reporter while she was doing a live television show.
In another post on police’s Facebook page, they displayed a photo of Balado and the suspect, along with a link to the man’s arrest video and video of the reporter being assaulted during the broadcast.
In a caption for the Facebook post, police said, the man was detained minutes after sexually assaulting the reporter while she was in a live broadcast.
In the video of the incident, the man asks Balado which television channel she worked for after groping her.
Balado told the man she was on a live broadcast and attempted to continue working, but host Nacho Abad insisted that she put him in front of the camera. She did so and confronted him, telling him she was on the job.
Video of the incident also shows the man disputed that he touched the reporter’s back side, but Balado told him he did. As he walked away, the man touched Balado’s head, video shows.
Mediaset Espana, which owns Cuatro, said it “categorically repudiates any form of harassment or aggression. We fully support Isa Balado, reporter for ‘En boca de todos’, after the absolutely intolerable situation she has suffered today.”
The incident drew condemnation from national political figures, with Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz blaming it on a culture of “machismo,” or aggressive masculinity.
“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.
Equality Minister Irene Montero said on X she supported Balado, adding that, “Non-consensual touching is sexual violence and we say enough to impunity.”
The furor over the groping comes in the wake of Spain’s World Cup kissing scandal, where soccer federation president Luis Rubiales gave a non-consensual kiss to player Jenni Hermoso after her team won the championship last month. The scandal led to Rubiales resigning amid an assault investigation and triggered a national debate over sexism and inequity in Spain.
Read More: Police in Spain arrest man who touched female reporter’s back side on air
