The Minister of Communication and Information of the Government of Venezuela, Freddy Ñáñez, announced this Monday the expulsion of the German channel Deutsche Welle from all cable service companies in the country, accusing the television station of “disseminating content and promoting propaganda of hatred” against the nation. The measure has had an immediate effect. A few days before, the German state television had posted some content on social networks in which he collected information attributed to Transparency International, which placed Venezuela as the second most corrupt country in the world.
“Venezuela is a mafia state,” journalist Ernesto Fuenmayor states in the report, a video of just two minutes and without journalistic development, more in the style of a youtuber than that of a reporter. It alludes to the existence of the Cartel of the Suns, as “a criminal network of cocaine and gold trafficking” structured by “high-ranking military personnel and influential politicians,” who, trafficking with the needs of the population, “ has made a lot of money”, in a context in which justice is in favor of the Government.
What is stated in this report replicates and includes part of the accusations that sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, and some of the international community, such as the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, have made to the Maduro Government in recent years. The data is interspersed with continuous images of Maduro himself. “In addition to covering up the genocide in Gaza, the DW account in Spanish has been responsible for defaming and spreading hatred against Venezuela. Their hoaxes are disgusting, but the poverty of their contents are also sad,” Ñáñez declared, in response to the report, in his X account.
In his television program, Maduro himself later commented on the decision made by his office, accusing the television station of being “Nazi.” “They and other international media have a campaign against Venezuela, they want to show that everything bad in the world is here, they seek to stain me, to attack the country. We must be attentive.”
This is not the first time that the Government of Venezuela has irremediable differences with the dissemination of certain international news and editorial content. Stations such as CNN in Spanish, or the Colombian RCN and Caracol Radio, usually critical of Chavismo's actions, were also expelled from the country a few years ago.
“Without a free press, there is a dictatorship,” states a post placed by the National College of Journalists of Venezuela on its social networks, in protest against the measure. “Censorship is another attack against freedom of expression.” In recent years, the Maduro Government has been toughening its policy against autonomous or critical media: in a year like 2022 alone, 78 radio stations in the country were closed. According to the NGO Espacio Público, between 2003 and 2022, a total of 285 were completed.
This occurs in a context of international closure of Chavismo. The authorities have detained opponents and activists in recent weeks, the most important of them being security expert Rocío San Miguel. The Government also flatly refuses to admit the participation of the main opposition, María Corina Machado, in this year's presidential elections, despite the fact that Chavismo, in the Barbados agreements, had shown its intention to organize free and democratic elections. . The United States went so far as to lift sanctions on gold and oil, but Washington has been disenchanted with the steps Venezuela has taken and has already said that it will not renew these specific licenses. The airing of DW is only one more step in that direction.
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