Arcadia Foundation

Reuters is reporting that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez may soon monitor, block and criminally charge website authors who disagree with the government. The Reuters story goes on to state that Chavez recently claimed that a Venezuelan website, specifically  http://www.noticierodigital.com/ wrote a false story that a senior official in the Chavez government had been assassinated. The blunder was indeed retracted 2 days later.

However, Chavez claims that the retraction took far too long, and in doing so, the journalists behind the post may have violated Venezuelan law. Now though the Venezuelan President may be correct that a two-day delay is extreme, he may use this new capital of rationale to hanker down on the freedoms of his own people, using Noticiero Digital as a scapegoat, similar to the scapegoat of supermarket owners being blamed for rampant food shortages in the nation.

Reuters quotes President Chavez;

“We have to act. We are going to ask the attorney general for help, because this is a crime. I have information that this page periodically publishes stories calling for a coup d’etat. That cannot be permitted.”

The report by Reuters states social media web portals such as Twitter and Facebook are valuable tools in protesting the recent government crackdown on those that oppose Chavez’s policies.

Venezuela’s government revoked the licenses of 34 radio stations last year, saying some failed to update their registrations or allowed their concessions to expire while others held licenses granted to an operator now deceased. Human rights groups have accused Chavez of trying to stifle dissent, and the latest slip-up from Noticiero digital may have been all it will take to see Chavez have his regime those in Iran, Russia and indeed China in the repression of free speech.

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