In May, Espacio Público (Public Space) registered 49 cases corresponding to 112 violations of freedom of expression, including intimidation, censorship, and administrative restrictions. The victims are mostly journalists and other individuals from the general population, while the security forces, state institutions, and public officials bear the responsibility of the abuses.

556 breaches of the law accumulate by the end of May, including 20 arrests of journalists, press workers, and other individuals that demonstrate the extent of the persecution against anyone who legitimately exercises his or her right to access and disseminate information in the country.

Intimidation and harassment

Despite the warning made by UN human rights experts about the increase of threats, attacks, and judicial persecution against journalists, health workers, and other individuals in Venezuela, the national government holds to a policy of repression against anyone who insists on documenting the situation on Venezuelan streets in the context of the complex humanitarian emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This month we registered 35 cases of intimidation and 4 cases of harassment, including the case of Luis López, a press worker from La Verdad de Vargas who was forced by officers of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) to delete the footage of a protest of medical doctors on Soublette Avenue in La Guaira, Vargas, on May 13.

The officers surrounded the journalist and forced him to show the footage and pictures he had taken and instructed him to delete them or face arrest. He warned that such incidents are increasingly frequent and stated that sometimes he is left with no alternative but deleting his recordings. “This is happening to all the journalists covering the GNB”. 

Pedro García, a journalist at UniTV, experienced a similar situation when a GNB colonel threatened him and deleted the footage and pictures he took of people queuing at the Virgen del Valle gas station on Fuchón Tovar Avenue, Nueva Esparta, on May 27.

García reported that the officer threatened to arrest him, seized his camera, and proceeded to delete the video interviews and photographs he had taken of the situation at the spot, encouraged by some chavistas present at the moment.

In a different incident, four GNB officers intimidated photojournalists Andrés Rodríguez from El Pitazo, Rayner Peña from EFE, and Daniel Blanco, on May 23 while they were working near the DirecTV national headquarters in the El Rosal, Caracas.

Despite showing their credentials, the officers checked the journalists’ phones. The GNB alleged that they were “violating the security perimeter” even though the reporters were half a block from the satellite TV company premises, toward the opposite end of the street.

Rodriguez recounted that the officers deleted some videos he had made with his phone. “They insisted on checking our cameras. We refused, “.

Obstructing the work of journalists is a common occurrence. In Caracas, several unidentified individuals intimidated Carolain Caraballo, a journalist from Caraota Digital, while she was taking pictures of water trucks queuing to refill water in Lomas del Ávila, on Monday, May 25.

The journalist reported the incident through her Twitter account. She explained that one of the men was trying to intimidate her by making a “loud call for support from the “Peace Squads” because Caraota Digital had arrived.” Caraballo presumes that the man works in the water refill center.

Detentions continue

We recorded 20 arrests in May related to violations of the right to information, most of them against individuals who made specific comments on social media and journalists for covering the news. During the first five months of the year, we documented a total of 79 arrests, a worrying number considering that no citizen should be jailed for exercising a right enshrined in the Constitution.

The case of Rolando Rodríguez, a driver working at La Prensa de Lara news site, stands out. He was arrested on May 8 by GNB officers when he was filling his vehicle with gas at the Don Bau station on Libertador Avenue, Barquisimeto, Lara.

Rodríguez and others had spent several hours at the site when the officers said they could no longer stay there because the working hours had finished. When they were ready to be evicted from the place, Rodríguez recorded a video with his cell phone, causing his arrest for more than one hour.

Another case that stands out is that of Wilfredo Rodríguez, who was released on Monday 11 after being spending five days in detention for reporting on the irregularities in the sale of gas in the state of Delta Amacuro via Facebook.

Rodríguez was arbitrarily detained by officers of the National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command (Conas) on May 7, and charged for the crime of “insulting a public officer” by the 1st Control Court headed by Judge Lizgreana Palma, who decided to grant him the benefit of a precautionary measure with a presentation regime every 30 days.

Wilfredo Rodríguez is a radio host who uses his personal accounts on social media to denounce alleged irregularities regarding corruption among the army in the distribution of fuel and the mismanagement of the regional government in the state of Delta Amacuro.

Following the same pattern of the case of Wilfredo Rodríguez, José Vásquez was detained on May 5 by GNB officers after he posted a comment on his Facebook and WhatsApp accounts showing his dissatisfaction with the fuel crisis in Cantaura, Anzoátegui.

Vásquez, who works as a taxi driver, allegedly called on his followers to protest the critical situation of fuel supply, which was only available to a privileged few. “Share this ladies and gentlemen, only the so-called enchufados (people having connections to the government) can fill their cars’ tanks while most of the people in Cantaura, taxis and bus drivers are left with no fuel,” he wrote.

GNB troops went to his home and took him to the fire department where he was held in a dungeon with nine other people. A captain named Hernández interrogated him.

Vásquez was told that he could be accused of several crimes, including “instigation to hatred”, an alleged crime typified in the unconstitutional “law” on hate. The next day, he was handed over to the Bureau for Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigations (CICPC) in Anaco and later taken to the Courts in El Tigre, where he was placed under a precautionary measure, having to appear before the court every 45 days for three months.

On May 26, CICPC officers detained Andreína de los Ángeles Urdaneta Martínez, a resident physician at the Adolfo D’Empaire Hospital in Cabimas, Zulia, for the allegedly posting an image against Nicolás Maduro on her WhatsApp status.

The post for which the medical doctor was arbitrarily detained without a judicial order, was described by the officers as “inciting hatred against Maduro”.

Violations on the Internet

The Internet has become an increasingly besieged space in Venezuela. The Venezuelan State constantly blocks the sites that people visit to find information. On May 15, the state-owned Telecom Company CANTV and the private company Inter blocked the access to the news site runrun.es.

The Internet observatory organization Ve Sin Filtro warned of the blockade and detailed that it consisted of a restriction on the domain name system (DNS).

The same happened with the websites of the Non-Governmental Organization Caracas Mi Convive and his coordinator Roberto Patiño, which were blocked by the main Internet providers in Venezuela on Monday, May 18.

Ve Sin Filtro reported the block on Twitter and detailed that it was a DNS block deployed by CANTV, Movistar, Digitel, Inter, and Supercable.

The constant crashes of the National Electric System (SEN) also affect the lives of the people. On May 5, Venezuelans experienced a blackout that affected 19 states of the country that further restricted Internet connectivity to less than 60% of the regular connection in the country.

The information was confirmed by the Internet observatory organization NetBlocks through its Twitter account, which noted the significant impact of the outage on the connection to the country’s network.

“The real-time data from the network shows a significant decrease of national connectivity to only 60% of the usual level,” NetBlocks reported.

On May 14, another power blackout affected the operations of the digital news site El Correo del Caroní. The blackout not only affected its headquarters but the states of Aragua, Carabobo, Lara, Bolívar, Zulia, and Táchira. The announcement was made through the site’s Twitter account while several neighborhoods in Puerto Ordaz were left in the dark and with no Internet access.

The restrictions not only affect digital media companies. The Venezuelan State intimidates and persecutes those who express online in their personal capacity. On May 3, the head of the Integral Defense Operational Zone (Zodi) of the state of Lara, General Moreno Martínez, intimidated the population by assuring that he will not allow the spread of uncertainty through social media.

Local newspaper El Impulso denounced that Moreno Martínez assured that he has a team that monitors social media to prevent citizens from spreading “uncertainty” in the state. The statements were made during the deployment of the security forces to enforce the quarantine in the region.

Under lockdown and censorship

The Venezuelan people have received very bad news during the lockdown. On May 19, the US company AT&T, owner of DirecTV Venezuela, announced in a statement the cease of operations in the country after a US government order prohibiting economic relations with certain people or companies related to the Venezuelan government.

The suspension of the operations of DirecTV in Venezuela is a severe blow to the freedom of expression of the people living in the country. The consequences of this decision affect more than 13 million people who have little or no access to information of public interest, entertainment, and educational content.

This measure has serious implications from a human rights perspective, specifically to the access to information and freedom of expression, already restricted by the Venezuelan authorities.

In another incident that further limits the media sector in the country, officials of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) ordered Rumbera 106.9 FM station to shut down in the state of Miranda, on May 15.

José Lara, the manager of the radio broadcasting department at Conatel, led a visit to the station to deliver two letters, one signed by Jorge Rodríguez, Minister for Communication and Information of Nicolás Maduro, and another signed by Jorge Elieser Márquez, Director General of the censoring agency, to inform of the termination of the concession which enabled the station to remain on air.

Eliú Ramos Ortega, president of the station, declared that “We are a station mainly devoted to music, but we keep an open editorial line that allows regular people to express themselves,”

The same day, journalist Víctor Hugo Donaire denounced that De Frente (Upfront), the show he hosted at Roscio TV in the state of Guárico, was taken off the air.

The show, broadcasted on weekdays nights, had an important audience and was known for being a source of information and debate in the state of Guárico.

Donaire reported that the Director of Roscio TV, Robert Hernández, phoned him to let him know the decision of taking his program off the air, explaining that the measure responded to alleged pressure from the government of the state of Guárico.

Journalist Vladimir Villegas experienced the same situation on May 26, when he denounced the ending of his daily TV show, Vladimir at 1 (Vladimir at 1), broadcast by Globovisión for seven years.

He assured through a tweet that the reason behind the decision was pressure from the Nicolás Maduro government:

“Dear Friends. I regret to announce that @Vladimirala1_gv is no longer on the air on @globovision. The @NicolasMaduro government pushed for my dismissal. I will talk about this extensively through my social media. Many thanks to the audience for joining me these 7 years” Villegas wrote in a tweet.

The show hosted by Villegas focused on interviews where different actors of the political, business and other spheres gathered to debate on the Venezuelan situation.

Translated by: José Rafael Medina