(SPJ/IFEX) – The following is one of twelve SPJ resolutions passed by delegates to the SPJ National Convention on 28 October 2000, during the main business session of the convention: Resolution #7 Venezuela WHEREAS the government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has contributed to a climate of hostility toward the independent news media, and […]
(SPJ/IFEX) – The following is one of twelve SPJ resolutions passed by delegates to the SPJ National Convention on 28 October 2000, during the main business session of the convention:
Resolution #7
Venezuela
WHEREAS the government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has contributed to a climate of hostility toward the independent news media, and
WHEREAS President Chávez himself has himself openly expressed his personal hostility toward independent media that have criticized his policies,
WHEREAS the 1998 constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela contains a clause that guarantees dissemination of “timely, accurate and objective information” by the mass media, without adequately detailing who will define “timely, accurate and objective,” and
WHEREAS Pablo Lopez Ulacio, owner and editor of the weekly newspaper La Razon in
Caracas, has been forced into hiding since August 2000 rather than face being re-arrested for failing to answer a summons in a defamation suit against him by Tobías Carrero, a wealthy friend and benefactor of President Chávez, and
WHEREAS two judges appointed by President Chávez who have presided over the Lopez case have refused to allow his attorney to introduce evidence that would demonstrate the truth of the articles published about Tobías Carrero in La Razon,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Society of Professional Journalists does express its support for and solidarity with Pablo Lopez Ulacio and the other Venezuelan journalists and independent media that have been intimidated by the Chávez administration for their pursuit of investigative journalism or for editorial criticism of the Chávez administration,
FURTHER the Society implores President Chávez to acknowledge that a free, independent press is indispensable for the functioning of a democracy and calls upon him to desist from fostering a climate of hostility and intimidation toward journalists in his country.
