Miami (February 10, 2014)—A march planned by press organizations in Venezuela with the aim of urging the government to grant newspapers foreign exchange quotas for them to be able to import newsprint and other production supplies today won the support of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).
Due to administrative difficulties imposed by President Nicolás Maduro’s government dozens of newspapers have had to shut down and others will do so in the near future due to their not being allowed to import newsprint, ink and other supplies not manufactured in the South American country.
The march, planned for tomorrow by the National Press Workers Union (SNTP) and which will wind up outside the National Foreign Trade Center (CENCOEX) in Caracas, will have the support of the National Journalists Guild (CNP) and print media workers.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, declared, “Our organization supports the march which will bring together various press unions that have made it a common cause to defend their source of work, the right of the people to be informed and press freedom.”
According to estimates made by the press in inland Venezuela there have temporarily stopped being printed 10 newspapers since last September, of which five (El Sol de Maturín, Diario de Sucre, Antorcha, El Expreso and El Guayanés) were still out of circulation at the end of January. Another 29 media outlets in the capital and inland have reduced the number of their pages and have stopped printing supplements and weekend magazines.
On January 17 El Nacional published a front page with a letter to President Maduro expressing the frustration of the newspaper because “it has complied with all the requirements that the law demands in order to obtain foreign exchange,” asking him to give “the order authorizing procedures for granting” the dollars necessary for importation. The majority of the newspapers have published editorials with the same plea.
Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, reiterated that the obstacles to have access to foreign exchange and permits to import newsprint and other supplies are part of an official strategy aimed at punishing independent media. He said that Maduro “tends to admit it in his statements, as this weekend when he said that he will toughen control of the media, justifying it by saying they incite violence with their yellow journalism and anti-government propaganda.”
Paolillo in addition to indicating that the IAPA is remaining on a state of alert concerning this situation added that along with other, regional press organizations it will discuss concrete actions to support the Venezuelan newspapers at its upcoming meeting in Barbados in early April.
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.
