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RCTV is off the air

UPDATED:
Troops Fire Upon Protesters in Venezuela
Venezuela moves against second opposition TV channel

Amid protests, Venezuela’s TV station goes off the air

Despite protests by democracy activists, Venezuela’s oldest television network went off the air at midnight Sunday, victim of a fresh push by President Hugo Chavez to tighten his grip over the nation’s media

As my podcast guests explained, now everything depends on the leader and what he wants done:

“The decision was mine” to close RCTV, Chavez said Saturday

As my guests stated in Saturday’s podcast, RCTV’s license renewal was denied by Chavez’s decree, not by due process of law.

You can listen to the podcast here

Daniel Duquenal, one of my podcast guests has an excellent essay on the closing: Antes que anochezca: waiting for the night in Venezuela

But more importantly, and a consolation of sorts for me, is the intensity of the international response to the closing of RCTV. Anyone who is anybody in the world has either condemned Chavez or at least remained silent, and definitely refused to support Chavez. Only a few, a surprisingly very few, have come out to support Chavez and they have no credit anyway. You can see it everywhere, from the desperate and ridiculous accusations of Minister Lara today to comment sections at Publius Pundit from pro Chavez Anglos losing their grip on things. Indeed, one from that side should be pissed off: 6 months of intense propaganda and you get editorials such as the one from Le Monde. Millions of dollars in paid services gone to waste, thousands of hours of “grass root” working for naught. The world is unto Chavez, and them, and they know it.

Yes, it is a small consolation but it is an important one. Chavez has lost any respectability he might still have had, and there is nothing he can do to recover it. When, say, Mugabe or Fujimori did this sort of things, they stopped been received where it mattered. Their regime started to unravel as they started losing the respect of their people even if those for a variety of reasons kept voting for them at first. And we know all that Chavez pins for international stages. Many will be denied him now.

You must read the whole essay.

Miguel Octavio, also my guest on Saturday’s podcast, posts on Hugo Chavez’ fake democracy. He also translated Venezuelan daily’s El Nacional editorial, Power without limits, front-page editorial in El Nacional.

Miguel also reports that last night a representative of the “Board for Social Responsibility” of the Ministry of Communications threatened the media with shutting them down for up to three days by broadcasting the Inter-american Press Society (SIP) press conference.

Last night: Caracas police halt TV shutdown protest

Police broke up an opposition protest using a water cannon and tear gas after hundreds took to the streets on Sunday condemning a decision by President Hugo Chavez to force Venezuela’s most widely watched channel off the air.

Soaked protesters scattered while the stream of water swept the street, then sang the national anthem as they returned to face a column of riot police outside the state telecommunications commission.

Via Instapundit, Boing-boing has videos of the Venezuelan media crackdown: TV anchors sign off, mouths shut, including this one,

The BBC has a video of the protests.

But that wasn’t all: Hugo Chavez Silences the Opposition- Sends Tanks In!

Rule of law, private property rights, and freedom of press are all now absent under the Chavez regime.

The Jungle Hut has photos and eyewitness accounts of the protests.

Aleksander Boyd is back posting,

However sincere the resolutions and letters condemning the act, on Monday morning, when RCTV’s right to broadcast is illegally terminated, Chavez will still be the ultimate icon of the world’s resented imbeciles and those concerned about the loss of another democratic right in Venezuela will carry on with the business of il dolce far niente at taxpayers’ expense. Toothless multilateral bodies have, as Chavez, lost all legitimacy. Its condemnations mean jackshit in the real world. The future looks bleak in Venezuela, that much is certain and has, at last, been properly understood by democrats around the globe, whom are seen in the side of reason, in the side of rule of law.

And where are the American cable news channels?
While the BBC, Forbes, the NYT, the Guardian (also here), Reuters ( Venezuela TV station says troops seized equipment) and countless others are covering the story, I have yet to see any reporting at all at CNN, or NBC. Fox News just carried a brief news item.

History is being made and they all are celebrity-watching.

Also don’t miss
Mora’s excellent report and round-up at Publius Pundit.

Update
Associated Press: Chavez Launches New Venezuela TV Station
update 2 Troops Fire Upon Protesters in Venezuela

National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air.

This time it was rubber bullets; in 2004 gunmen fired on Thor Halvessen’s mother during a peaceful demonstration.
Univision’s showing live coverage of the ongoing demonstrations. I’ll try to get video to post.

Students protest as Minister charges Globovision, CNN and Venezueladigital with promoting the killing of Chavez
Venezuela Police Repel Protests Over TV Network’s Closing

Maria Alejandra Diaz, the social responsibility director at the Communications Ministry, cited recent legislation in Venezuela that enabled the government to shut down media groups for 72 hours if their coverage incited people to engage in violent protests. Ms. Díaz asked news organizations to refrain from reporting on the association’s statement, since it could allow viewers, readers or listeners to think Mr. Chavez’s government was “tyrannical.”

Because that would show it for what it is.
Gateway Pundit has more round-up and commentary.

6PM Update Venezuela moves against second opposition TV channel

Hours after President Hugo Chavez shut down Venezuela’s main opposition broadcaster, his government demanded an investigation of news network Globovision on Monday for allegedly inciting an assassination attempt on the leftist leader.

Previous posts:
Saturday’s podcast with Thor Halvorssen, President and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation, award-winning bloggers Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News and Views and Miguel Octavio of The Devil’s Excrement, and oil industry expert Gustavo Coronel.

Last night’s podcast on the closing of Venezuela’s RCTV

Venezuelan Supreme Court confiscates RCTV

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Last night’s podcast on the closing of Venezuela’s RCTV

UPDATED

My guests were Thor Halvorssen, President and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation, award-winning bloggers Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News and Views and Miguel Octavio of The Devil’s Excrement, and oil industry expert Gustavo Coronel. You can listen to the archived podcast here. All of their blogs continue covering this story, please visit them for updates.

Thor made an excellent point,

“It’s important that we underline that, although we are constantly referring to the president of Venezuela, it’s not because he happens to be the cause of all this. It’s because he has chosen that the center of the government is him, nothing is above him. The separation of powers does not exist in Venezuela: the judiciary is subservient to the executive power, the National Assembly was elected with less than 15% of the votes cast, meaning that there was a huge abstention rate. So, for the interest of your listeners, Venezuela is about as self-centered in terms of government power as North Korea, or Cuba, is: Everything depends on the leader and what he wants done.

Here are the facts on the closing of the TV station:

  • RCTV is the oldest TV station in the country, with the largest share of the audience.
  • Globovision is the only other major opposition-aligned channel, and it is not seen in all parts of the country. Two other channels that used to be staunchly anti-Chavez, Venevision and Televen, have recently toned down their coverage.
  • Chile, the European Parliament, the US Senate (including senators Kennedy, Lugar, Dodd, Clinton and Obama), and Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, The Human Rights Foundation, and Amnesty International have passed resolutions condemming the closing

You can read more about it at Free RCTV

Venezuela is well on the way of becoming a totalitarian state.

I wrote an article for Pajamas Media last February on the Enabling Law. Chavez is legally able to rule by decree, and, as Miguel stated, is pushing for a constitutional reform that would allow him to be re-elected indefinitely.

Additionally, there’s the Maisanta database

The government has built a detailed list – the Maisanta database – that documents the political leanings of 12.4 million Venezuelan registered voters. The list is routinely used to deny opposition supporters access to public jobs and government social programs.

Gustavo explained that the database is also used for denying identity documents like passports and ID cards they need to get around, like the [South African] apartheid system. Miguel also stated that the Maisanta database was distributed prior to the recall referendum and you can look up people by their identity number but also by name, and it will give information as to whether he signed against Chavez or not, whether he voted or not, whether he’s enrolled in any government programs.

Why does the closing of the TV station matter?
As Mora explains

It will get uglier. And there will be no media to cover it. The food shortages, the riots, the violence, the rage in the streets, the Chavista corruption – there will be no one to check it. The broad unity of the people and their big television station will be broken, and again, all that will be left is chavismo, the chavista monolith. This is a real beginning of the end for Venezuela.

And we may hear very little about it because the free press is fading fast.

The protests continued today, and RCTV vows to stay on,

but Venezuelan Social Television is to begin broadcasting at midnight, using the same frequency occupied by Radio Caracas Television

The RCTV closing: the teachings on Venezuelan society

Update
WaPo: Venezuela TV station says troops seized equipment
Miami Herald: TV station going dark at midnight
Le Monde: Censure à la Chavez, translated by Daniel, who’s doing The countdown to RCTV closing.
ABC, Madrid: Dictatorship shows its face in Venezuela
Please vote for all these posts at Real Clear Politics
Forbes: Police broke up an opposition protest using a water cannon and tear gas

Follow-up post: RCTV is off the air.

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Venezuelan Supreme Court confiscates RCTV


Chavez Pulls Plug on Venezuela’s Favorite Television Network.

The Devil’s Excrement has the story:
Studens protest, the regime threatens and the Supreme Court confiscates RCTV’s property

Meanwhile, as people begin checking the newssites on the Internet, Noticiero Digital, Megaresistenciaand RCTV websites are taken down by denial of service attacks, the effects of which are still being felt hours later. This is compounded by problems with the CANTV network which take down some other news sites in what may be unrelated to the denial of serivce attacks, since all the others are hosted abroad.

The Free RCTV website shows that the closing was scheduled for next Monday.

Earlier today Venezuela News and Views posted, Those exquisite revolutionary moments: RCTV as the “me, my, mine” moment of the autocrat with the tearing apart of a country, but don’t miss also Marcel Granier and Hugo Chavez.

Gustavo Coronel has Letter to Senator Richard Lugar.

Thor Halvorssen of The Human Rights Foundation emailed with RCTV Shutdown Condemned By European Parliament; Senators Clinton, Obama, and Kennedy. Let’s hope the distinguished senators remember it the next time they talk about President Chavez.

Update, Saturday 26 May Listen to Daniel, Miguel, Gustavo and Thor have to say in tonight’s special podcast. Notes on the podcast

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The disquieting creeping-up of European censorship

Last March I posted that the French Constitutional Council had approved a law that could lead to creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet, effectively banning journalists from reporting violence. At that time, the French government proposed

a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules.

One of the reasons I post on France is that, where France leads, Europe follows.

Well, today Baron Bodissey posts about censorship in Finland, The proposed law, however, is much more far-reaching and included IM and IRC, and includes the hiring of moderators censors to monitor it all.

The items in italics are the replies by Finnish State Prosecutor Mika Illman on the proposed law:

Hiring an adequate number of moderators would become mandatory, as it already is mandatory for a network publication to have an editor, who is responsible for controlling the journalistic work.
…
3. How does your suggestion take IRC and instant messages into account?

The principle is the same. The administrator would have a duty to monitor the discussion and in due time to take action against clearly illegal material. This is no stronger obligation than the one TV or radio broadcaster has in the case of live broadcast.

Who would pay for all this and how it would be done two of the many unasked questions.

Couldn’t happen here, you say? Here in the USA, broadcast radio is trying to censor internet radio. Little Miss Attila explains why you should support H.R. 2060.

Update: And then, there’s using the Fairness Doctrine As Political Intimidation

In preparation for the 2008 elections, Democrats in Congress are trying to intimidate radio and TV broadcasters into including more Democrat views into their programs.

They are trying to resurrect an antiquated Federal Communications Commission regulation, the Fairness Doctrine, to require that opposing sides be presented to arguments. The Fairness Doctrine emerged at a time of very few radio, then TV, stations. Although in 1969 the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality, in 1974 the Supreme Court did conclude the Doctrine “inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate”, and in 1984 that a scarcity of airwaves argument was by then flawed as a multitude of stations emerged and were expected. In 1985 the FCC ceased to support a Fairness Doctrine, and formally scrapped it in 1987. The number of radio stations has doubled since 1970, the former three networks’ TV stations are now challenged by over 500 alternatives, and the Internet carries a wide-diversity of views.

At root of the current push by Democrats is, as conservative columnist Geoge Will observed, “The illiberals’ transparent, and often proclaimed, objective is to silence talk radio.” Why? “By trying to again empower the government to regulate broadcasting, illiberals reveal their lack of confidence in their ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and their disdain for consumer sovereignty – and hence for the public.”

Read evert word.

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Gates of Vienna on free speech in Finland, and here in the USA

Dymphna at Gates of Vienna sent these two must-read posts:
Muzzled in Finland

One of the foremost Finnish immigration and islam critical bloggers Mikko Ellilä is facing a police investigation concerning his blog posts.

Please read the posts in full; Dymphna and the Baron are suggesting we take action: Finland Cracks Down

1. If you are a blogger, publicize this on your blog. If you are Finnish, and have additional information on Mikko Ellilä, send it in to us or to other blogs to add to the publicity. In particular, a photo would help — I couldn’t find one.
2. Contact the Finnish authorities. For our American readers, the Finnish embassy has a handy US map with state-by-state contact information here.
Here’s the main contact info for their embassy in Washington:

Embassy of Finland
3301 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008
U.S.A

Tel. 1-202-298 5800
Fax: 1-202-298 6030
E-mail: sanomat.was@formin.fi
Homepage: www.finland.org

As a follow-up,follow-up,

The Finnish government is apparently trying to impose Chinese-style totalitarian censorship on the internet. Since the parliament would not approve of any new censorship laws, the government is trying to impose censorship ILLEGALLY by abusing existing laws against hate speech. Such laws were originally obviously meant to be used against Nazi-style “kill all Jews” rhetoric, but since the Muslims use that kind of rhetoric all the time, and THEY are not being interrogated by the police, whereas people who say things like “Islam is a totalitarian ideology” ARE interrogated, the hate speech laws are obviously being used AGAINST their original purpose.

Again, this is an extremely important issue. Do not give in.

I emailed today.

You believe something like this can’t happen here?
Well, think again.

More on the “hate crime” legislation here (PDF file)
Update No Law Abridging, 2007 Edition

Any number of groups eager to force their views upon their opponents and their opponents’ audiences would swarm aboard any such enterprise. Imagine a law that would require Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch to permit “rebuttal” entries from CAIR, ISNA, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Consider the prospect of environmentalists and global warming flacksters being legally entitled to “equal time” on contrary Websites. Or imagine, if you can, giving Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan the legal privilege of forcing a “rebuttal” into this document, in the name of “fairness.”

Combine “fairness doctrine” legislation with “hate speech” legislation, some of which is already pending before several state legislatures, and what would anyone be allowed to say without fear of prosecution or a crippling legal action?

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Venezuela: Anti-Chavez TV/radio station owner burned in effigy

The video’s in Spanish, but they’re burning an effigy of Marcel Granier, the RCTV director. RCTV is the oldest TV network in Venezuela, which is the only TV station not controlled by the government. The station is scheduled to close next month.

Venezuela News and Views explains how There is an official fascist line in Venezuela, from the government

This video is quite self explanatory, there is only one little section worth translating. At 12 seconds the TV broadcaster says the following: … they burned the image of Marcel Granier, director of RCTV, for his participation in the coup of April 2002….. Now, this is very grave because to begin with we are on the eve of April 2002 commemorations and also because there is no trial, no official and legal investigation on Granier for his 2002 role. This small legality does not stop the state TV in declaring him fully guilty, fully deserving of him being burning yesterday, and more soon. In a normal country Granier could sue easily a network doing such a lynching.

Ponder that the next time to hear about how Chavez is a-charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelanstm.
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Banned in France: citizen journalists from reporting violence

Augusto, Beth, No Pasaran and LGF are talking about this,
France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence (emphasis added):

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
…
The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.

And what’s next?

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules.

Reporters Without Borders is worrying about “excessive self censorship”

The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

I’m certain that the French government censorship will spare them that worry.

The law will punish operators of websites that publish such images with prison or a fine of nearly $100,000.

As it was, the French media did their best to not report on, and then underplay as much as possible, the stories about the Halimi murder, the 2006 New Year’s day rampage on a train from Nice to Lyon, and the 2005 rioting banlieus, which continued into 2006. Since I’m not as optimistic as Reporters Without Borders, I expect a full news blackout on anything that doesn’t reflect well on La Belle France. Everything else will be whitewashed to an appropriate shade.

Additionally, where France goes, the EU follows. Not that this is news.

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