VENEZUELA

WHEREAS since February this year there has been a worsening in government violence and police repression of hundreds of Venezuelans, mostly students and opposition leaders, who have died, been tortured, jailed or subjected to criminal proceedings for having expressed, in exercising their rights, disagreements with the Nicolás Maduro regime WHEREAS more than a hundred journalists have been victims, injured or attacked, as a consequence of this generalized repression by the government that its “armed collectives” share in WHEREAS the government has denied independent media the foreign exchange necessary to acquire supplies for their operation, especially for the importation of newsprint, subjecting them to its direct acquisition from a corporation set up by the government and a dependency of the Venezuelan President, Corporación Maneiro, which discretionally assigns it WHEREAS there has taken place the acquisition of independent media through foreign corporate mechanisms that prevent disclosure of their real owners, going against transparency and the right to information, but which then have reduced their editorial stances critical of the government, firing reporters, columnists and even cartoonists, as in the case of Rama Suprani of El Universal WHEREAS schedules have been removed from cable channels, on the orders of Conatel, the state communications agency, of international television stations such as NTN24 to punish them for their editorial stance critical of the government WHEREAS the above-mentioned official agency Conatel and the state telecoms company CANTV are affecting the normal operation of social media and Web sites, as in the case of NTN24 and INFOBAE America, controlling the servers with the aim of censoring information that is carried through these when it is regarded as harmful to the government WHEREAS Article 5 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes restrictions on the circulation of the media or dissemination of their reports, forced publication of information, the imposition of obstacles to the free flow of news, and restrictions on the activities and movements of journalists directly contradict freedom of the press. THE IAPA GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLVES to denounce the accelerated dismantling of the free and independent press, with the aggravated loss of democratic freedoms and the consolidation of a regime of terror in the face of those who express their disagreement with the behavior of the authorities to denounce the fact that the lack of access to foreign exchange for the purchase of newsprint is an indirect form of censorship of freedom of expression and of the press to call upon the OAS Office of Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the democratic governments of the Americas to be aware of the situation and to adopt relevant measures of promotion and cooperation pertinent for the reestablishment of a free press and the full functioning of the State of Law.