Global IssuesMEDIA: U.S. Rights Groups Condemn Closure of Venezuelan Radio Stations
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.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service