Miami (March 25, 2010)–The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) protested the arrest today of Guillermo Zuloaga, president of the Globovisión television channel in Venezuela, and called for intervention by international agencies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to prevent the further erosion of press freedom in Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere.
The organization also urged the Venezuelan government to provide legal safeguards and ensure due process.
The IAPA now views Venezuela as the second country in the Americas to imprison journalists in reprisal for performing their role of reporting, expressing opinions and criticizing. In addition to Zuloaga, currently jailed are Gustavo Azócar and Leocenis García, as well as several others facing criminal charges in Venezuela and in exile abroad, among them Rafael Poleo. Cuba holds 27 independent journalists in prison.
Zuloaga was preparing to fly this morning from the Josefa Camejo international airport in Punto Fijo, Falcón state, northwest of Caracas, when he was barred from leaving the country, without official notice. In the afternoon a warrant for his arrest was issued and he was taken to Caracas.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz reported that Zuloaga was being charged with “dissemination of false information,” punishable by three to five years’ imprisonment, and “offending and insulting the President of Venezuela” (a contempt charge), which carries a 15 month prison sentence. The charges stem from Zuloaga’s remarks criticizing the government during the IAPA’s recent biannual meeting in Aruba, which the National Assembly had asked the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate.
IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre protested Zuloaga’s arrest, calling it a “flagrant violation of press freedom and of Venezuelans’ freedom of expression,” adding it was ridiculous for the government to assume that he intended to flee the country. “If that were true,” Aguirre declared, “it would have made sense for Zuloaga to remain in Aruba, so this is nothing more than a tall tale by a government that is looking for any excuse to control freedom.”
The investigation ordered by the National Assembly is based on statements that Zuloaga made on Sunday, March 21, at the IAPA meeting during an open discussion on press freedom in Venezuela which also included supporters of the government of President Hugo Chávez.
Zuloaga asked for the floor to respond to a claim made by a group of journalists who identified themselves as members of the group Journalists for the Truth, and from Canal 8 and TV Avila, both state-owned TV channels, stating that he, as president of Globovisión, and Marcel Granier, president of RCTV, were among those responsible for the coup d-état that ousted Chávez for 48 hours in 2002.
Zuloaga responded that “the gentleman here from Avila Tv is saying that Dr. Granier and I were involved in a coup d’état. In Venezuela there was a massive rejection of 49 laws that President Chávez was trying to enact overnight, and with the destruction of Petróleos de Venezuela company, which they did when they fired 24,000 people, there was a demonstration rarely seen, calculated at more than one million people, which the President ordered be fired upon and “let the lead fly,” and that night ended with the General in Chief – the first time in 50 years that there had been a General in Chief – named by President Chávez --publicly declaring that there had been a call for the resignation of President Chávez, which he had accepted. That afterwards, a series of circumstances (sic), that he would return, is another story. But neither Dr. Granier nor I signed that decree that is alluded to. We are also against what happened back then because if it had been done right perhaps we would have a different Venezuela today.”
In a part of this statement by Zuloaga, whose channel is facing 40 legal and administrative proceedings, he also criticized President Chávez for using state-owned media for the benefit of his administration and declared that “you cannot talk about true freedom of expression when a government uses its power to repress media, to shut down media such as a Radio Caracas Televisión, after 53 years on the air, closing them down is not freedom of expression. You cannot talk about freedom of expression when there are more than 2,000 simulcasts, something like that, that add up to more than 60 days in a row. A President of the Republic using the power that he has and the authority that he has to manipulate public opinion and to attempt to impose one way of thinking.”
The IAPA also repeated its concern at the situation of Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, a one-time presidential candidate and former governor of the state of Zulia, arrested on March 22 and charged with “conspiracy, public instigation to commit crime, and dissemination of false information” after he spoke of supposed government links with narco-traffickers and terrorists during the program “Aló Ciudadano” (Hi, Citizen) broadcast by Globovisión.
Following is a transcript, translated into English, of the statements made by Guillermo Zuloaga Núñez at the IAPA Midyear Meeting on March 21, 2010:
“Guillermo Zuloaga: “Good morning everybody and thank you very much for the support that we Venezuelans are receiving. I would simply like to refer to certain inaccuracies that we have seen today. First of all, all these representatives of the media that we are hearing today such as Venezolana de Televisión, such as Avila Tv, such as Radio Nacional, are Venezuelan state media, they belong to the Venezuelan nation, they are funded with Venezuelans’ money that is mismanaged by this government, and they should devote themselves to doing things that are in the national interest and not in defense of political propaganda or in defense of just a few ideas.
“President of the Republic Hugo Chávez -- it is true that he won some elections in 1998 and is legitimately in office. But afterwards, instead of being the President of all Venezuelans, he has devoted himself to being the President of a group of Venezuelans and to trying to divide Venezuela over something -- that is socialism of the 21st century. He says he is Marxist, he was never elected for those qualities.
“Then they are saying, the gentleman here from Avila Tv is saying that Dr. Granier and I were involved in a coup d’état. In Venezuela there was a massive rejection of 49 laws that President Chávez was trying to enact overnight, and with the destruction of Petróleos de Venezuela company, which they did by firing 24,000 people, there was a demonstration rarely seen, calculated at more than one million people, which the President ordered be fired upon and “let the lead fly,” and that night ended with the General in Chief – the first time in 50 years that there had been a General in Chief – named by President Chávez --publicly declaring that there had been a call for the resignation of President Chávez, which he had accepted. That afterwards, a series of circumstances (sic), that he would return is another story. But neither Dr. Granier nor I signed that decree that is alluded to. We are also against what happened back then because if it had been done right perhaps we would have a different Venezuela today.”
“I wanted to clear up those issues and you cannot talk about true freedom of expression when a government uses its power to repress media, to shut down media such as a Radio Caracas Televisión, after 53 years on the air, closing them down is not freedom of expression. You cannot talk about freedom of expression when there are more than 2,000 simulcasts, something like that, that add up to more than 60 days in a row. A President of the Republic using the power that he has and the authority that he has to manipulate public opinion and to attempt to impose one way of thinking. I wanted to clear up those points.”
If you would like to listen the audio of Guillermo Zuloaga's declaration, please click here.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org
