Venezuela

WHEREAS murders, attempted murders, attacks, abuse and threats against journalists are continuing in the country and most of them are unsolved WHEREAS President Hugo Chávez’s control over the branches of government is increasing and becoming more and more obvious WHEREAS the government of President Chávez and his supporters have declared that independent journalists and media outlets are “military targets” as the president publicly insults, criticizes, attacks and threatens the press, which promotes violence against it WHEREAS discrimination, prohibition and limitations by the government of President Chávez on access to official information, dispatches and activities by independent journalists and media outlets restricts the fundamental freedoms of expression and information WHEREAS along with the failure to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión and its closure in May of 2007, ordered by President Chávez for political reasons, military forces took over the channel’s transmission equipment throughout the country without the courts having issued a final ruling in their lawsuits WHEREAS attacks on the installations, journalists and executives of Globovisión news channel have been attributed to the government WHEREAS the government of President Chávez is strengthening its illegal policy of discriminating in the placement of official advertising to favor pro-government media outlets, which have subordinated the principles of journalistic ethics and censor themselves WHEREAS the government is using military forces to take over broadcast media outlets and their transmitting stations as occurred last year with Radio Caracas Televisión and this year with the radio stations Rumbera Network 101.7 FM and Llanera 91.2 FM in Guárico state and Radio Stereo 103.3 FM in Caracas WHEREAS after the people spoke in the December 2 referendum that defeated President Chávez’s proposal to amend the National Constitution, he decreed, with the consent of the National Assembly, 26 laws that implement norms rejected by the people in the referendum, and which have been called unconstitutional by the Academy of Political and Social Sciences of Venezuela and other institutions WHEREAS principle 10 of the Declaration of Chapultepec says, “No news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government” THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to denounce to the United Nations Human Rights Council the attacks by the government of Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez against the independent communications media and journalists and to request a thorough investigation of the restrictions on freedom of expression and the right to information, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and Articles 56 and 57 of the Venezuelan Constitution to condemn the verbal violence of President Chávez against independent Venezuelan media outlets and journalists and point out that it directly motivates the threats and attacks by officials and activists to condemn the fact that the placement of official advertising by the government of President Chávez is used to reward official media outlets and promote self-censorship to repudiate the description of independent journalists and media outlets as “military targets” by activists connected to President Chávez and to ask the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate this to demand that the government clear up any measure to take media buildings by force and their immediate return until any legal proceeding concerning them is settled.