CARACAS.– Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged the regime of Nicolás Maduro, the candidate for re-election, to allow both domestic and foreign journalists to cover the presidential elections scheduled for Sunday, July 28.
“Elections cannot be democratic if the right to information is not respected,” RSF warned in a statement released on Wednesday, July 3.
“In Venezuelathe campaign for the presidential elections is taking place in a climate of censorship. In a decade, the Nicolas regime Maduro “The Venezuelan government has worked to shore up state hegemony in the media landscape, while reducing the space for independent journalism. RSF calls on the Venezuelan government to guarantee the exercise of journalism, especially during this electoral period. There can be no democratic elections if the opposition is denied access to the media,” said Artur Romeu, director of RSF’s Latin America desk.
“The media images speak for themselves: while she draws crowds across the country, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who is banned from running for president, is completely invisible on Venezuelan television. Yet despite this censorship, the candidate chosen to replace her, diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, little known to the general public, is leading in polls widely disseminated in the country,” RSF said.
At the same time, the organization indicated that, due to the suspension of the invitation to the European Union Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) by the pro-government National Assembly (AN), “it is vital that foreign journalists can travel to Venezuela to cover the elections without running the risk of being detained or expelled from the country.”
Maduro “atrophies” information landscape
Reporters Without Borders He also noted that Venezuela’s information landscape “has been totally atrophied under the presidency (regime) of Nicolás Madurowho is seeking a third term.”
The organization reports that since 2016, according to the NGO Espacio Público, more than 200 radio stations and more than a dozen television channels have seen their signal interrupted by order of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), “due to broadcasts considered subversive by the Government (regime).”
RSF said that “deprived of their jobs or the resources to practice their profession, journalists have left the country en masse. Last March, the Association of Venezuelan Journalists Abroad (Apevex) estimated that there were a thousand information professionals in exile.”
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Source: Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
