In September we documented 12 cases that resulted in 26 violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela, highlighting acts of censorship and verbal harassment of journalists, almost all perpetrated by State institutions and officials.
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In total we recorded seven acts of censorship, six of verbal harassment, six administrative restrictions, four of intimidation, two of judicial harassment and one direct threat. Among the 17 victims, we counted six journalists or reporters, four media outlets and four web pages or platforms.
Half of the 16 registered perpetrators were State institutions, as well as two officials, two private operators, one security body and one member of the Executive Branch. This pattern confirms that the official policy of attacks on free expression and the inaction of other state agencies to prevent this and other human rights violations is continuous.
Details of the cases
On September 2nd, Nicolás Maduro verbally harassed the digital media outlets Efecto Cocuyo, TalCual and El Pitazo during a speech on his program “Con Maduro+” (With Maduro plus), which is broadcast every Monday throughout the country’s public media system.
Maduro accused the three media outlets of being “founded, financed and maintained by USAID (United States Agency for International Development)” and of imposing “manipulation on the network at the precise moment,” referring to their coverage of the post-election protests and the national blackout on August 30th.
Between the night of September 2nd and the morning of September 3rd, the state-owned company CANTV kept access to the social network for content dissemination and discussion “Reddit” blocked, which had already been blocked at the beginning of August.
The block was DNS-type and lasted about 14 hours “along with other changes in the CANTV network during that period,” reported the VE sin Filtro Internet Observatory. During that time, the website of the instant messaging platform Telegram was also affected.
The Hispana 85.9 FM radio station reported on September 4th that it went off the air on August 30th by order of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), after 25 years of uninterrupted transmission in the state of Falcón (northwest). The measure affects 12 direct employees and 20 independent producers.
The closure of Hispana 85.9 FM occurred during the massive blackout on August 30th. Three Conatel officials arrived at their headquarters and called the director to deliver the “resolution” (decree) ordering the closure, without mentioning the reason. “It is presumed that it was due to a political issue,” said a local journalist.
Officials from the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) arrested the National Coordinator of the Prociudadanos party, Leocenis García, on September 12th, two days after he published a video on his social networks accusing the Maduro government of violating the Constitution after the July 28th election.
“We Venezuelans are asking for proof that (Maduro) won and there is none (…) The electoral chamber (of the TSJ) has issued a sentence that says it is unappealable, that is subverting the rule of law and the constitutional order,” says García in the video. The leader was arrested in the Chacao municipality, in Caracas, and is being charged with terrorism.
On September 13th, Conatel ordered the closure of the Victoria 103.9 FM radio station that had been operating in the state of Aragua (center) for more than 20 years. The closure occurred after a visit from officials who notified them “of the termination of the radio broadcasting license.”
The station’s general manager, Thaelman Felez, said that the resolution was “loaded with accusations and reasoning” from Conatel that her legal team was reviewing in order to act accordingly. The closure affects at least 10 journalists and broadcasters and six administrative workers.
On September 12th, actress and writer Prakriti Maduro (no relation) reported that in previous days her personal account on the social network X was hacked, after publishing testimonies that have reached her private messaging about arbitrary arrests in the context of post-election protests.
“For everyone’s peace of mind, the testimonies I receive on social networks I take screenshots and delete them immediately. So even if they hack me, they won’t find traces of my informants,” Maduro said through her X account.
During the weekend of September 14th, hacks and hacking attempts were reported through suspicious links or phishing to Instagram accounts of Venezuelan journalists and citizens. Some of them, like the journalist Andrés Rojas, received messages from users supposedly identifying themselves as representing Meta, the current name of the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
The message deceptively warns users about the deactivation of their Instagram accounts for allegedly violating the rules of the social network. Later, they indicate that they must complete an appeal form, with which they gain access to the user’s data.
The Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, intimidated the citizen and editor of the ‘Llanero Digital’ (Digital Plainsman) portal, Emanuel Figueroa, and verbally harassed the journalists Nelson Bocaranda and Nitu Pérez Osuna during the broadcast of his weekly program that is broadcast on the state channel, Venezolana de Televisión.
Cabello read a post by Figueroa on the social network X that referred to the national blackout of August 30th and the political crisis in Venezuela after the election of July 28th. Without any proof, the minister insinuated that Figueroa, Bocaranda and Osuna had prior knowledge of the massive blackout and accused them of being “fascists.”
The Spanish journalist Carlos Albert was deported from Venezuela after spending three hours arbitrarily detained upon arriving on September 13th at the Maiquetía International Airport, in the state of La Guaira (center-north), wearing a burgundy shirt with the name “María Corina” on the back.
The journalist said that he was detained by immigration authorities without receiving any explanation or official reason. After subjecting him to several questions, the officials told him that his documentation “was incorrect” and then that “the profile was not suitable.”
On September 19th, journalist Luis Gonzalo Pérez reported on his Instagram account that he decided to leave Venezuela forcibly after spending two months in hiding due to the persecution and threats that he and his family received from the State.
After covering the post-election protests for international media, he began to receive threats and alerts that state officials were looking for him to capture him. González was also part of the press team of the opposition leader María Corina Machado and covered her tours around the country from the end of 2023 until the July 28th election.
(This website was blocked in Venezuela by all ISPs last July)