Recently, the Chavez regime in Venezuela censored the Colombian news channel NTN24. CNN reporter Karl Penhaul and his team were attacked by police in Caracas essentially for doing their job. The Caracas Press Club and the Institute of Society and Press have reported several assaults on journalists in recent days. According to reports, images and videos of the brutality unleashed against protesters uploaded to Twitter have been censored. Yesterday, President Maduro threatened to oust CNN from the country.
While the regime will surely justify this by claiming it fuels the fire, I want to remind Venezuela observers that this blog, which focuses almost exclusively on corruption and is mainly written in English, has been censored since January 16, 2014. It’s pointless to even bring up the case of RCTV, the takeover of dozens of radio stations, how Globovisión was stifled with tax investigations and other measures until a group of boligarcas purchased it, or the little-known acquisition of Venezuela’s largest newspaper conglomerate (Cadena Capriles) by proxies of chavista governor Tareck el Aissami.
I heard at a CSIS event the other day from a bearded Chilean gentleman who, since some critical articles are still published in El Universal, suggests that there is still press freedom in Venezuela. While the completely discredited opinion of nostalgic communists is heard in free societies, the Venezuelans see a growing curtain of censorship from a regime desperate to hide the brutal repression against protesters and innocent civilians. The state of Táchira, on the border with Colombia where protests began due to an attempted violation of a student, has no internet access. Russian Sukhoi fighter jets and two battalions have been deployed to increase oppression.
The events in Venezuela are happening at a pace that makes it impossible for traditional media to keep up. Protests are not only occurring in Caracas; the entire country is against chavismo. Opposition leaders have called for a demonstration tomorrow, likely turning into hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to support student protests and denounce deaths, injuries, torture, and the dire economic situation.
The best way to stay updated on what’s happening is through Twitter. You can follow me @alekboyd and other bloggers and colleagues for the latest info. In this terrible hour, what we need and expect from democrats around the world is solidarity and support by retweeting the news coming out of our country.