IAPA calls Venezuelan government undemocratic for taking RCTV off the air

“This is a very easy thing to describe – it is nothing more or less than an act of abuse of power in which logic disappears,” declared IAPA President Rafael Molina on opening a press conference on the RCTV shutdown. Up to the early hours of today there were street demonstrations in support of the independent television network in several Caracas districts and elsewhere in the country and pro-government rallies in support of the closure.

Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Día, said that apart from the administrative and legal grounds put forward by the government and adopted by the judiciary to deny RCTV’s right to continue operating “we clearly see how a politically-motivated and undemocratic step has been taken to shut down a news outlet that had an independent editorial policy not to the government’s liking.”

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez since December 28 had been announcing that the government would not be renewing the broadcast license, saying the TV network was “pro-coup” and engaging in subversive activities. On Saturday the government said that it was not going to back down regarding RCTV, while announcing the renewal of licenses for the other privately-owned channel, Venevisión, and the state-run Venezolana de TV.

On Friday, in an unprecedented action lacking legal justification, the Supreme Court authorized the new official channel, TVes, to use RCTV’s transmission equipment, ordering to Army to take custody of it. TVes is already broadcasting using the RCTV equipment ­– and on the same frequency. The IAPA sees as an abuse of power the fact that the government has assigned to itself a television channel without putting it out to public bid.

In his meeting yesterday with IAPA directors Marcel Granier, the RCTV president, described the actions as “discriminatory” and said that RCTV would continue battling in the local courts despite the denial by the Supreme Court of more than 10 legal appeals in recent days. The TV station’s executives also reported that appeals have been lodged with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and Court.

Gonzalo Marroquín, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, declared, “We are witnessing one further link in a global strategy that clearly demonstrates how the government is trying to control media and limit the Venezuelan people’s right to know.”

Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre, was referring to Venezuela’s recent constitutional reform, modification of the Penal Code and passage of the Contents Law, among other actions, in which provisions that are contrary to international standards on free speech and press freedom have been included.

“We have not come to Venezuela solely to support and show solidarity with the journalists or a company or news outlet, but rather because the only thing this action does is to infringe the right of all Venezuelans to receive and have access to information,” Marroquín  added.

Before the press conference was over the Venezuelan government already was seeking to intimidate though reprisals those TV channels and radio stations that would report the IAPA statements, on the basis that it regarded them as “interference in the country’s domestic policies,” according to María Díaz, director of the Ministry of Communication and Information’s Social Responsibility department.

Former IAPA President Alejandro Miró Quesada Cisneros, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper El Comercio, drew a parallel between Venezuela and Peru, citing examples of how the press had been shackled during the Alberto Fujimori administration. “It is thanks to the independent press and its exposure of corruption that Peru was able to emerge to democracy,” he said. “There is no other way – without independent media there can be no real democracy.”

The IAPA delegation, also made up of Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz and Press Freedom Director Ricardo Trotti, held meetings with leaders of the Venezuelan Press Bloc in which they discussed courses of action to mitigate the government steps against RCTV and other news media and press freedom and freedom of expression in general.

This was the ninth IAPA mission to Venezuela during the current government that took office in 1999. Since then, the IAPA has been denouncing a number of outrages against individual journalists and news media, among them physical assaults and executive and judicial orders that have significantly hampered the work of journalists in the country.      

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