The editor-in-chief of El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, considered that the intimidation is related to the journalistic investigations published at the beginning of January on the newspaper’s website about the brothers Santiago José and Ricardo José Morón, alleged front men for Nicolás Maduro Guerra, sanctioned for United States in 2020
The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) rejected the persecution undertaken by the government of Nicolás Maduro against the editor-in-chief of El Nacional, José Gregorio Meza, and other journalists of the newspaper “in apparent retaliation for published reports that make Chavismo uncomfortable.”
The journalist was arrested on January 25 by officials from the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (Cicpc), accompanied by a prosecutor from the Public Ministry (MP). They questioned him for the purpose of “declaring about some works that were published in El Nacional” and he was released without charge the next day.
Faced with this situation, the president of the IAPA, Michael Greenspon, and the president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, condemned “the recent actions of harassment against journalists and editors of the newspaper.”
“There is no doubt that the political regime seeks to silence any expression that is contrary to its interests or questions them,” they said in a joint statement reflected in a IAPA statement.
The directors of the IAPA mentioned that the repression of the regime has also manifested itself in the more than 300 closed media in the last decade and the confiscation of the facilities of El Nacional in April 2022.
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Miguel Henrique Otero, considered that the intimidation is related to the journalistic investigations published at the beginning of January on the newspaper’s website about the brothers Santiago José and Ricardo José Morón, alleged front men for Nicolás Maduro Guerra, sanctioned by the States. United in 2020.
«We are going to continue working; We are not going to silence ourselves », stressed Otero, who is in exile in Spain due to the government’s persecution of his family and the newspaper.
These facts give an overview of the state of freedom of expression in Venezuela, located as the penultimate country of the Chapultepec Index 2021-2022 prepared by the IAPA.
The Chapultepec Index is an annual barometer that measures institutional actions that affect freedom of the press and expression in 22 countries of the Americas. The measurement is made based on the principles of the IAPA’s Chapultepec and Salta declarations.
During the last General Assembly of the IAPA, held in Madrid, the entity highlighted that “independent journalism ceased to exist in the country, since the government increased the repression of the work of journalists and increased censorship by blocking and closure of digital media and radio stations.
*Read also: Public Space: in 2022 the largest closure of radio stations in Venezuela was registered
Post Views: 381
