New York, October 19, 2011--Venezuela's telecommunications regulator has fined Globovisión, the country's last remaining critical network, more than US$2 million for its coverage of deadly prison riots in June and July, news reports said.
Committee to Protect Journalists
Venezuela
CPJ honors
brave journalists
CPJ honored journalists from Venezuela, Ethiopia, Iran, and Russia with its 2010 International Press Freedom Awards on Tuesday. At right, awardee Laureano Márquez.Awardee videos: • Davari, Iran
• Isayeva, Russia • Kebede, Ethiopia • Márquez, Venezuela
Blog: • Recalling Maguindanao
• Wanting answers
New York, August 30, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is
concerned by ongoing criminal cases against two executives from the Venezuelan
newspaper 6to Poder, but welcomes a judge's decision to allow the weekly
to resume publishing. The paper's owner and a top executive were charged last
week with inciting hatred, insulting a public official, and publicly
denigrating women.
New York, August 24, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns
the closure of the Venezuelan newspaper 6to
Poder after a judge ruled on Monday that the weekly cease distribution. The
newspaper's owner and a top executive were charged with incitement to hatred,
insulting a public official, and publicly denigrating women after the paper published a satirical article on government
officials, local press reports said.
Lately, we have come to expect violence against journalists in certain regions, such as the Middle East. But here at CPJ, 2011 has also been troubling for the number of journalists killed in an entirely different part of the world, the Americas.
New York, May 20, 2011--Wilfred Iván Ojeda, a Venezuelan newspaper columnist and politician, was shot to death on Tuesday in the city of La Victoria, Aragua state, according to press reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists urged authorities today to fully investigate the murder and bring all those responsible to justice.
Just as the awardee himself anticipated (in his subconscious, after all, he is no idiot), this "freedom of expression award" stirred up disapproval and indignation across the board. Notwithstanding, no one should question the decision of Argentina's University of La Plata. If anyone has freedom of expression in Venezuela, it's the prize-winner: He talks and talks without limits, his discourse immune to any attempts to be reined in.
Attacks on the Press
| Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, USA, Venezuela
In Latin America, A Return of Censorship
By Carlos Lauría
As the preeminent political family in the northeastern state of Maranhão for more than 40 years, the Sarneys are used to getting their way in Brazilian civic life. So when the leading national daily O Estado de S. Paulo published allegations in June 2009 that linked José Sarney, the Senate president and the nation's former leader, to nepotism and corruption, the political clan did not sit idly by. The Sarneys turned to a judge in Brasília, winning an injunction that halted O Estado from publishing any more reports about the allegations. Eighteen months later, as 2010 came to a close, the ban remained in effect despite domestic and international outcry.
• Censorship spikes: RCTV banished again, newspapers barred from using crime images.
• New laws restrict Internet content, tighten control over broadcast licenses.
Key Statistic
1,300: Hours of presidential speeches that were aired between 1999 and 2010.
Using all the tools of power, President Hugo Chávez Frías continued his aggressive campaign to silence critical news media. In the waning days of a lame-duck National Assembly, the Chávez administration pushed through measures to restrict Internet content and tighten control over broadcast licenses. Relying on politicized courts, the government barred two major newspapers from publishing images of crime and violence in the run-up to September legislative elections. And through a series of politically motivated regulatory actions, the administration intimidated one critical broadcaster, Globovisión, and banished another, RCTV International.
Venezuelan Information Minister Andrés
Izarra declared
on the state
television channel VTV last week that "never has so much been done to
guarantee, promote, and drive freedom of expression than in the government of
President Hugo Chávez." Izarra needs to hire a fact-checker.
New York, December 21, 2010--President Hugo Chávez Frías must veto two laws regulating the Internet and telecommunications that could promote further censorship and seriously limit freedom of expression in Venezuela, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Both provisions were passed on Monday by the National Assembly.
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