Miami (March 23, 2012)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today described as “an act of censorship and an undermining of public debate and investigative reporting” a court order requiring that the Venezuelan news media accompany any information published about the contamination of drinking water with technical reports produced by government agencies.
Caracas Metropolitan Area Court No. 25, acting on an order from the Attorney General’s Office, on Wednesday, March 21, issued a preliminary injunction requiring all news media, both national and regional, to act with “full responsibility in the dissemination of information concerning alleged contamination of the country’s drinking water, having to use due accurate technical information corroborated by a competent entity.”
The Chair of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gustavo Mohme, declared, “We reject the Court’s demand as it is nothing more than an act of media censorship and an action that undermines the role of the press and restricts debate on matters of great public interest.”
The Court acted after Venezuelan Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz, opened an investigation concerning publications where governors and environmentalists complain about the contamination of potable water. The Attorney General feels these reports create anxiety and deems necessary that the media report “in a truthful manner.”
In October last year, under similar allegations that this type of information causes chaos among the population, the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) fined Globovisión television channel for its news coverage of a prison riot in which 30 people died. The official agency ordered Globovisión to pay the equivalent of some $2,162,790, saying that their aired report had engaged in “political intolerance” and the “justification of crime,” while creating “anxiety among the citizenry.”
Mohme, Editor of the Lima, Peru newspaper La República, said, “With this indirect censorship the media are prevented from being society’s natural discussion forum, where citizens channel their complaints, frustrations, criticisms, and opinions, and demand changes from the authorities.” He added that the court order also restricts the media’s right to investigate, “A fundamental benefit for the People, particularly when one considers that investigative reporting and the public denunciation that emerges from it do not always align with government entities’ technical reports.”
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.
