Catia TVe, Venezuela's leading alternative community TV broadcaster, was raided by Caracas authorities and dismantled, apparently on the pretext that it was illegal for a TV studio to be located in a hospital.
I heard Catia TVe's founder and director Blanca Ekhout speak in Isla Mujeres earlier this year and I was impressed by what she and her associates had accomplished. In addition to the raid, there have been some incidents of violence against Catia TVe reporters and other media people associated with them. The situation is not entirely clear, but I think that it is well worth your attention.
Venezuela’s Catia TV Illegally Raided & Shut Down
The Year's Most Serious Attack Against Press Freedom
By Alex Contreras Baspineiro
http://www.narconews.com/Issue30/article808.html
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
July 14, 2003
Catia TV in Caracas, a community television station that is not merely at the service of the community but, rather, is directed by the local people, has just been closed in a maneuver more often seen under the old military dictatorships: The orders came from the current Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas, Venezuela (and an ex-"journalist"): Alfredo Peña, supporter of the attempted coup d’etat of April 2002 that Catia TV, among others, defeated.
Catia TV brings a very different form of television to (and from) the public than that of the Commercial stations. The programs, interviews, the operation of the equipment, the editing, and the organization of this Community Media outlet – that broadcasts from the poor neighborhoods in East Caracas – is constructed by the men, women, elders, and children. who live there... all the people, mobilizing daily. That’s why it was shut down: to silence the voices that Catia TV made strong. The transmitter and other equipment have been seized.
Monday, July 14, 2003
By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=9557
Chavez Frias defends Catia TV and warns against dictatorial opposition
President Hugo Chavez Frias has come out in support of community and alternative Catia TV calling Metropolitan Mayor Alfredo Pena's decision to close the TV channel's studio in Lidice Hospital "dictatorial" and "proper to fascism."
Speaking during his Sunday radio address, Chavez Frias says he agrees with the analysis of Las Ultimas Noticias tabloid editor, Eleazar Diaz Rangel, who asks what would have been the reaction if the government had done the same against a private TV channel and what the reaction would have been internationally ... "would we have seen an Organization of American States (OAS) commission in Venezuela?"
Posted by jules_siegel at July 15, 2003 08:40 AM | TrackBackHELP DEFEND FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN VENEZUELA
A television station has just been shut down in Caracas. Not one of
Venezuela's quasi-monopolistic commercial stations that is virulently
opposed to President Chavez's reforms. The media outlet that has been gagged
is one of the country's main community television stations. And it's not
President Chavez who's preventing it from broadcasting. It's one of his
fiercest opponents, the ex-journalist and mayor of greater Caracas Alfredo
Peña.
Peña's confiscation of Catia Tve's transmitter and audiovisual equipment has
deprived the poor communities of Western Caracas of their right to receive
independent information. It is a measure that is eerily reminiscent of what
took place during the April 2002 coup d'état when a group of reactionary
military officers briefly kidnapped democratically-elected President Hugo
Chavez.
During the April coup the community media outlets were invaded and some
community media journalists were arrested and tortured with the hope that
the commercial TV channels, who were decisive players in the coup, could
fully monopolize the airwaves. This repression, however, didn't prevent the
community media journalists from continuing, at the risk of their lives, to
inform their communities and the outside world about what was really
happening in Venezuela.
Today, angry citizens have taken to the streets in Caracas to demand the
reopening of Catia Tve, a community television station legalized in 2002
thanks to a new set of regulations that are internationally recognized as a
major democratic advance in terms of freedom of speech. These regulations
grant communities radio and television frequencies that are renewable every
five years and allows them to produce programs that are free of the
influence of any economic or political power.
Recently, the Canadian social justice activist Naomi Klein expressed her
dismay at seeing that certain Human Rights NGOs like Reporters Without
Borders spend their time blaming the Chavez government for being a threat to
freedom of speech while failing to report that the elite-owned commercial
media wage campaigns of intimidation and denigration aimed at alternative
and community media. Campaigns that have coincided with physical attacks
and media outlet closures, such as the one Catia Tve has just undergone.
Signed : the National Network of Venezuelan Community Media (RNMCV),
ATTAC-Venezuela, the National Association of Free, Alternative and Community
Media (ANMCLA).
PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW:
Write to demand that the ex-journalist and current mayor of greater Caracas
Alfredo Peña stop preventing Catia Tve from broadcasting and allow this
community media outlet to continue to pursue its job of informing the
community. Write to him at the following e-mail address :
alcadiamayor.gov.ve
and send a copy to: puebloalzao@aporrea.org, ameriques@rsf.org