Archive for August 18th, 2010

El Nacional goes into censorship mode

August 18, 2010

Using tactics not seen since the dictatorship of Marco Perez Jimenez in the 50’s, today’s El Nacional shows the word “Censored” in each of the pages where it had to remove material because of yesterday’s order by the Judge banning pictures of violent events in order to protect children.

The noose tightens around Freedom of the Press in Venezuela

August 18, 2010

It is a very simple story:

One month and eight days before the the National Assembly elections, the number one concern of the electorate is:

Crime

And as the press notes and emphasizes the fact that crime has tripled in the eleven years of Chavismo, a Judge issues the following prohibition:

“For the next four weeks, no newspaper, magazine or weekly of the country can publish images that are violent, bloody, grotesque, whether about crime or not”

This is done to protect the “psychic and moral integrity of children and adolescents”. The four weeks “temporary” protection alone should tell you how electoral this decision is.

Of course, these people have been nowhere to be seen as kids and adolescents get murdered day after day by the uncontrollable crime that Chavez and his cohorts refuse to admit as a problem, but only as plot by the opposition.

Another noose has sadly tightened around Freedom of Speech in Venezuela and inĀ  clear violation of Art. 57 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which says:

Article 57:Everyone has the right to express freely his thoughts, his ideas and opinions either spoken, in writing or through any other form of expression and be able to use to that end any media of communication and diffusion, without the possibility of establishing censorship…

Can it be any clearer than this, it is simply another act of censorship and a violation of Freedom of Speech in Venezuela?