Government hits TV station
with fine called unpayable
By the A.M. Venezuela staff
and a special report
The Venezuelan government has hit the independent television station Globovision with a stiff fine for reporting the news.
The vice president of Globovisión, María Fernanda Flores,
revealed the new attack on the television station, and the situation
got a quick response at meeting of the Inter American Press
Association in Lima, Perú.
The president of the Inter American Press Association, Gonzalo
Marroquín, condemned the sanction, which consisting of a fine of
7.5 percent of its gross revenues in 2010, for reporting on the
take-over of the El Rodeo prison last June.
Marroquín said that “the sanction is part of a government
strategy to close the Globovisión channel under cover of
legality.” He added that it is a matter of “a new act of aggression
against the independent press of Venezuela, which unmasks the attitude
that the government has always held against freedom of the press.”
“We are facing a mechanism of apparent legality and legitimacy, but
which in fact has nothing legal about it; it is a dictatorial
measure,” said Marroquín, of the newspaper Siglo 21 in Guatemala.
The facts became known to the press group moments after the end of the
working sessions of the 67th General Assembly of the institution in
which reports and resolutions were approved about freedom of the press
in each country of the American hemisphere.
In statements made over the Venezuelan channel, the Vice President of
Globovisión, María Fernanda Flores, said that the fine
assessed by the Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones “is
unpayable and means the bankruptcy of the station.” According to other
sources, the fine would amount to around $2 million.
The sanction has to do with the dissemination of news by
Globovisión of the take-over of the prison and statements made
during the events by family members, who were considered to have
brought about the disturbance of public order. The sanction is based on
the law on Social Responsibility on Radio and Television.
Posted Oct. 18, 2011
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