Posts Tagged ‘Venezuela’
June 8th, 2012
The headquarters of Venezuelan newspaper Versión Final, in the city of Maracaibo, was shot at nine times on 3 June, making the attack
the third of its kind against a media outlet in the northeastern state of Zulia. On 28 May, the headquarters of newspaper Qué Pasa was attacked by a grenade that damaged the front side of the building, although there were no casualties. The following day, the public television station in Catatumbo suffered an armed attack.
March 23rd, 2012
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused the press of
“media terrorism” during a Ministers Council meeting this week, following reports on contamination of drinking water in the central region of the country. Chavez attributed the stories to an attempt to damage his image in an electoral year.
After speaking with Chavez, Venezuela’s attorney general Luisa Ortega announced on Wednesday that she would ask the courts to order the media to publish a technical report supporting the information published about water contamination. The prosecutor’s office also opened a criminal investigation into the news outlets that published the stories.
March 15th, 2012
Venezuelan TV channel Globovisión have
been accused of hiring paramilitary men to be involved in armed stand-offs on 10 March, resulting in two deaths. Members of armed group Colectivo La Piedrita went to the offices of Globovisión to accuse the station of hiring paramilitaries to ”promote violence” and blame them for the deaths of two former members of the group. Appearing with the hearses of the deceased group members, Colectivo demanded authorities investigate the deaths. The group also accused “Ultimas Noticias” newspaper of engaging in a “terrorist-media campaign” operating via social networks.
March 7th, 2012
A team of Globovisión journalists
were attacked by supporters of President Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela on Sunday. The journalists were covering an opposition political rally when assailants wearing red shirts associated with Chávez supporters threatened them with guns and stole their equipment. The march by opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski had previously been interuppted by armed men who fired weapons in an apparent effort to break up the rally. The footage recorded by the staff from Globovisión, Venezuela’s last critical TV news station, was stolen by the attackers, along with a camera, microphone, and radios.
January 17th, 2012
A
Venezuelan journalist has received
threatening messages via Twitter. Luis Carlos Díaz, Communication Networks Coordinator of the Gumilla Center, a Jesuit-run research institution, received a number of intimidating direct messages on Twitter. The attackers insisted Díaz was “going to be taught a lesson” for his remarks on previous cyber attacks which took place
late last year, his activity on social networks, and “working with priests”. The so-called hacker group N33 are believed to be responsible for these latest threats.
October 10th, 2011
Pro-Chavez Hackers in
Venezuela have targeted the emails and social media accounts of journalists. Milagros Socorro, director of the site
Código Venezuela, announced that hackers attacked her blog, Twitter and emails after criticising President Chavez’s communications ministry. Her Twitter profile image was changed to a bar of soap with the headline “wash your mouth out.” Socorro criticised Minister Andrés Izarra for accusing a foreign correspondent of being
unethical and disrespectful to authorities at a press conference in Caracas. It is believed that the group N33, which
have launched cyber attacks on critics of the Chavez administration, are responsible for the attack.
September 19th, 2011
Press access to
Venezuelan ministry representatives
has been restricted. The Venezuelan Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MTC in Spanish) told
the newspaper TalCual that they would no longer be able to speak to representatives following the publication of a report detailing problems with the Metro system in the capital, Caracas. The Press and Society Institute has criticised the Ministry’s decision, stating that it is against the Venezuelan constitution “which guarantees the right to access of public information in Article 28″. In 2010, TalCual was closed by the government following their publication of a satirical editorial describing an imaginary Venezuela without President Hugo Chávez.
September 6th, 2011
The Organization of American States’
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has accused
Venezuela of
censoring the country’s media. IACHR criticised
measures taken against satirical magazine
6to Poder, which was briefly censored for a cover portraying six government officials as cabaret dancers. The organisation released a statement saying that such instances “are against the regional standards for freedom of expression and create an intimidatory environment, encouraging self-censorship.” They also referred to a case against opposition politician Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, who was
sentenced to two years in prison in July 2011 for “distributing false information“, having accused Hugo Chávez’s government of supporting drug trafficking.
