U.S. Rights Groups Condemn Closure of
Venezuelan Radio Stations
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (IPS) - Several U.S.
rights groups condemned the closure of 34
radio stations, as well as the proposal of
restrictive media legislation, by Venezuelan
authorities Monday.
Public Works Minister and head of the
National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL),
Diosdado Cabello, announced last Friday the
"immediate" revocation of licenses for the
34 outlets, including some already expired.
Venezuela may take back as many as 285
television and radio licenses, Cabello said.
The licensees failed to comply with an order
issued last month to update documents with
the regulatory agency, according to Cabello.
"The government is becoming more intolerant
towards ideas and opinions that it opposes,"
Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator
for the Americas at the Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) told IPS.
He pointed to the clandestine way the
closures were announced. "Friday night
without giving the stations the opportunity
to defend themselves, without giving any
alert of what was coming. It’s really a sign
that this is not a routine procedure, but
part of a strategy designed by the
Venezuelan government to target critical
independent voices," Lauría said.
Cabello insisted that the closures are
"about legitimate authority of the
government to manage the radio spectrum...
We are only implementing what the law says."
The call for closures has come amid a
broader government effort to formulate a new
media law. On Jul. 30 Venezuela’s attorney
general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, introduced draft
legislation on "media crimes" that establish
prison sentences of up to four years for
anyone who, through media outlets, provides
"false" information that "harm[s] the
interests of the state."
Díaz defended the proposed law in the
National Assembly, saying that the state had
to take action in the face of "new forms of
criminality that have arisen as a
consequence of the abusive exercise of
freedom of information and opinion."
Washington-based Freedom House, which
categorised Venezuela as "not free" in its
‘Freedom of the Press 2009’ report, sees the
new law as a continuation of the Chavez
regime’s impingement on the rights of
Venezuelan citizens.
"This restrictive draft law shows an
unjustified need on the part of the
Venezuelan state to defend itself from its
own citizens and their opinions," said
Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive
director. "This represents a new low for
Venezuela, which is already one of Latin
America’s most restrictive environments for
the press, second only to Cuba."
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), this
proposal follows several other actions in
July that severely undermine freedom of
expression. TV and radio advertisements
criticising a legislative proposal made by
President Hugo Chávez’s administration were
taken off the air. The government also
proposed new regulations to compel cable
channels to carry President Hugo Chávez’s
speeches live, and announced that it would
limit the ability of radio stations to share
programming to extend their news coverage
throughout the country.
"What we are witnessing is the most
comprehensive assault on free speech in
Venezuela since Chávez came to power," said
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at
HRW. "With the exception of Cuba, Venezuela
is the only country in the region that shows
such flagrant disregard for universal
standards of freedom of expression."
According to HRW, the proposed legislation
would be in clear violation of international
norms on freedom of expression, including
article 13 of the American Convention on
Human Rights to which Venezuela is party.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has
stated that: "One cannot legitimately rely
on the right of a society to be honestly
informed in order to put in place a regime
of prior censorship for the alleged purpose
of eliminating information deemed to be
untrue in the eyes of the censor."
The Inter-American Declaration of Principles
on Freedom of Expression, approved by the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in
2000, states that: "Prior conditioning of
expressions, such as truthfulness,
timeliness or impartiality is incompatible
with the right to freedom of expression
recognised in international instruments."
"The proposed law is a recipe for censorship
and totally inconsistent with international
norms on free expression," said Vivanco.
Since he took power in 1999, Chavez has
continued to attack privately owned media.
In 2007, he did not renew the license of
television station RCTV - a popular critic
of the government. None of the station’s
appeals were successful.
"That was the beginning of very restrictive
period in terms of government control of the
flow of information," Lauría pointed out.
Last May, in response to Globovisión's
coverage of a May 4 earthquake - which
reported the magnitude and epicentre of the
quake on information provided by the U.S.
Geological Survey, after Venezuelan
authorities were unresponsive - CONATEL
investigated the station, citing quake
coverage that "could generate alarm, fear,
anxiety or panic in the population."
Referring to the earthquake in a subsequent
television and radio address, Chávez
publicly accused the private media of
"inciting hate - even war," and warned them
"not to make a mistake" because "they are
playing with fire," according to HRW.
Though the radio stations can appeal the
closures, Lauría is sceptical that these
will have any affect. "Taking into account
what happened with RCTV, it doesn’t look
very promising for them," he said.
The recent condemnation of Chávez’s media
crackdown should give further ammunition to
neoconservative pundits in the U.S. who have
been critical of his redistributive and
socialist policies and have attempted to
justify the Jun. 28 coup against Honduran
president Manuel Zelaya - a political ally
of Chávez 's. |
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