by René Lavanchy
Venezuela’s government insisted this week that it acted legally in taking over a dozen independent radio stations off the air, after being accused of an assault on free speech.
Venezuela’s telecommunications commission Conatel announced last week it intended to revoke the licences of 34 radio stations on the grounds that their owners had failed to file regulatory papers.
But Nelson Belfort, whose CNB company owns ten of the stations affected, insisted he had filed documents and said the government was “snatching away freedom of expression”. Opponents of the closures have been protesting both on the streets and online through thousands of messages on the Twitter messaging website.
President Hugo Chávez acknowledged the closures were politically motivated.
“We haven’t closed radio stations, we have recovered them… Stations which are now of the people and not the bourgeoisie”, he said on Saturday.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the closures jeopardised Venezuelan democracy. l
