CARACAS – The government took off the gloves in its running battle with the more independently minded media, as Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz insisted that the state had to take action in the face of “new forms of criminality that have arisen as a consequence of the abusive exercise of freedom of information and opinion.”
The Attorney General was proposing the much-vaunted legislation for a Media Crimes Law, about which there has been much talk in government circles of late. There were few surprises in the speech, as much of the rationale had been heard before.
It was necessary, she argued, to bring in new laws to provide “an appropriate protection of the citizens who are left defenseless against the irrational use of power by the media.” Just in case anybody hadn’t got the message, she added: “It is necessary that the Venezuelan state regulates freedom of expression.”
There was a limit to freedom of expression, she claimed, and she urged legislators to put that limit in place. Regulating the conduct of “the owners of the media and all the people who work in them” was a priority for the country, she said, and nobody should be allowed to get away with “committing punishable things nor helping to commit them.”
Neither could the media be allowed to “generate intranquillity, nor alter social peace or public order, nor generate a sense of impunity through news items.” What the media instead had to do was “comply with an educative function” as was stipulated by the constitution.
While Ortega Díaz spoke in general terms of the media, all the indications were that she did not have in mind state broadcasters – who, their critics claim, are all too willing to do the government’s bidding.
Her references to “owners” made it clear that she was talking about privately owned media, some but by no means all of whom are openly critical of the government, most notably the 24-hour news channel, Globovisión.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=340431
The head of one Venezuela’s last two nationally circulating opposition newspapers accused the leftist government on Monday of trying to intimidate and silence it.
Miguel Henrique Otero, editor and publisher of El Nacional, was responding to a weekend announcement by Venezuela’s chief prosecutor asking to have his bank accounts frozen.
“It is a brazen act” to call for “such a measure against someone via Twitter without me even knowing what I’m accused of,” Otero told The Associated Press by phone.
Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz used her official Twitter account Saturday to request that Otero’s bank accounts be frozen. Her office issued a press release saying the action was related to a lawsuit by a former Caracas mayor who claims Otero owes him $3.5 million.
https://www.whatsnextvenezuela.com/tag/luisa-ortega-diaz/
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