Venezuela

A member of the National Bolivarian Guard (the national army) deliberately fired on three clearly identified journalists during a student demonstration in the Caracas district of Palos Grandes on 14 May 2014.

Horacio Siciliano, a photojournalist with Reporte Confidencial, was pepper-sprayed in the face by a National Bolivarian Police officer when he was trying to cover the arrest of a young man in Caracas.

Venezuelan security forces have used unlawful force in response to antigovernment demonstrations, severely beating unarmed protesters and shooting them at point blank range, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 5 May 2014.

According to an El Nacional journalist, the attack took place a few metres away from a National Bolivarian Guard contingent, but no officer made an effort to stop or disperse the attack.

On April 21st, 2014, Juan Carlos Hernández, a reporter of El Carabobeño, a privately owned paper, was assaulted by a police officer of the regional state security corps of Carabobo state, when he was covering news in the El Trigal sector, to the northwest of the city of Valencia.

Journalist and Radio Fe y Alegría 103.1 FM producer Francisco León, reported that on 15 April 2014 he received a death threat in a letter that was left at the entrance of the radio station, which is located in Guayana, Bolívar. He said letter is a consequence of him going out to the street to protest.

On April 14, 2014, journalist Nairobi Pinto, head of the correspondents department at Globovisión, was released by her captors in Cúa, the capital of Urdaneta municipality in Miranda state, at close to 1 a.m. after the communicator had been kidnapped for over one week.

Professor Vladimir Kislinger believes that the harassment is a result of his work as an activist and his open support for the young university students who have been protesting in the nation’s streets.

On 6 April 2014, Nairobi Pinto, a chief correspondent for Globovisión, was kidnapped by two armed people wearing hoods. They forced the journalist into a blue Chevy vehicle outside the building she lives in, in Los Chaguaramos, Caracas.

On 14 January, Alek Boyd, a blogger, posted the details of a lawsuit that a former US ambassador to Venezuela has filed against the partners of Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan firm accused of bribing Venezuelan officials to get contracts in the energy engineering sector. Since then, Boyd’s blog has been blocked in Venezuela.

Follow the progression of events showing how student protests have newly ignited the embers of divisive politics in Venezuela.

Seeing the threat to press freedom in their neighbouring country, the Colombian Association of Newspaper and Media Editors (ANDIARIOS) started the initiative “WE ARE VENEZUELA, Without Press Freedom, There is No Democracy,” allowing Colombian newspapers to devote one page of their daily editions to news about Venezuela.

The Organization of American States (OAS) and its member countries should proceed with a meeting on the situation in Venezuela, says Human Rights Watch. The OAS should use the meeting to address the human rights violations committed in response to widespread public demonstrations.

In an attempt to hide the destructive violence of anti-government protests that took place on 12 February 2014, the Maduro administration has threatened media outlets who dare to veer from the official line, taking at least one off the air.

The Inter American Press Association holds the Venezuelan government responsible for the potential closure of the newspaper El Impulso, beset by obstacles to obtain permits to import newsprint and other supplies as part of an official strategy aimed at punishing independent media.

With the sale in April of Globovisión–the last remaining TV station critical of the country’s socialist government–to a business group allied with the government, hard-hitting TV news programming has become a rare commodity in Venezuela.