Closing RCTV: Forceful slap to the freedom of the press and to the democracy
On June 14, 2007
Lic. Helen Belletich - Direction of Communication of the University of Piura
(Piura).-to Defend the indefensible thing. This is what the chavistas have claimed before the measurement of the Venezuelan Government of closing the RCTV, the called dean of the Venezuelan television, with sign opened at national level for 53 years. The entire world has been pronounced, mainly, against the measurement that far from being an administrative justice act constitutes, as many have called it in a serious political error, an offense on the freedom of the press and an undemocratic act, even more when instead of the sign of RCTV there is erected today the sign of a public televisora.
It was Sunday, the 27th when there was silenced the voice and image of one of few bastions of freedom that exists in Venezuela. Since then the most important international, defending organisms of the freedom and human rights have expressed his rejection before this measurement, like the Inter-American Commission of Human rights; the senates of Latin-American countries, the European Union; the organization Reporter without Borders; the Parliament of the European Union, the Inter-American Association of Press; the organization Human Rights Watch and hundreds of mass media.
Doctor Rosa Zeta, teacher of the University of Piura, specialist in Communication history, Analysis of means and informative self-regulation thinks about the topic.
How does it qualify the measurement of closing of the RCTV in Caracas?
It is an undemocratic attitude, an offense on the freedom of expression. It is not possible to deny the renewal of one license to a televisora, only because it is against of the shift president. The government must guarantee the freedom of expression, without any censoring, because this way it is foreseen in the Constitution of 1999, signed by the Constituent National Assembly summoned by the president Hugo Chávez and that modified substantially the Political Constitution of Venezuela of 1961.
Until point affects this one measured the beginning of the freedom of the press in Venezuela and, in general, in Latin America?
The increasing intolerance of the president Hugo Chávez opposite to dissident opinions produces an inappropriate climate for the development of the freedom of expression insi de a plural democratic system and respect to the public freedoms. It is a bad art that thinks about how to avoid the inspection of the mass media and to benefit illegitimately from his use.
Although this situation affects straight Venezuela, we are conscious of that the "good" relations of the Venezuelan president with those of Latin-American countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, can become dangerous if these begin implanting the same strategies of governmental communication. Also it affects, essentially, the public who will receive partial information, only the one that the government wants to give, according to his targets.
Do you believe that the closing owes only one senile contract to itself, as it uses Chávez?
I believe that not. It is true that he has conquered the period of his license, but what it was touching it was his renewal and it has not happened, simply because it does not have a complaisant position with the diet chavista; the interests are of political type
The Government has right to have governmental means and express there his ideas to resist to the opposition; this is possible, it is licit and the President already does it. If these rights are demanded for his government, it cannot alienate other members of the Venezuelan society.
What instances stay now to defend the information right (objective, plural …) that has the user Venezuelan?
The Venezuelan society can invoke the finished, impartial defense of the informative plurality, and of the right to information, which needs to be a civil informed good. Moreover, it is interesting to the governments (well deliberate) to be provided with independent means that they should inform about the reality, but if there is no freedom nobody will inform about the uneases that they exist in the society, this way it will not be able to solve opportunely and efficiently the problems that can hinder his growth.
What would be the measurements to take before cases like that of RCTV?
We do not believe that these tensions finish in a nearby future; but yes we believe that it is necessary to defend the freedom of expression to realize a professional quality work, to end with the myth of the information like power for the one who controls it and to affirm with Soria that the information more than a power, it is a right and a duty.
It is necessary to conquer this freedom every day. Being independent from the government, from the civil servants, from the political parties, from the holdings, the means will be able to be constituted in an institutional system of control, ethical and reliable, because he enjoys credibility; that is to say, of freedom with social responsibility.
Before what national or international organisms is it possible to come?
The offenses must be denounced to the freedom of expression and to the right to information of the public, before the UNO, OEA, Inter-American Society of Press (SIP), Reporters without borders (RSF) and others.
Also, although we must respect the beginning of not interventionism in the nations, it is possible to do of public knowledge unjust situations that happen to the interior of the countries. Also, it is necessary to exhort the State to fulfill his function in the informative ambience: of guaranteeing and respecting the public freedom of information, the access to information, taking up office that the leaders are subject to the social control and that the means fulfill this role as mediators between the State and the citizenship. It has to support, therefore, a relation opened with the means, without connivances or conditioning. This is not a friendship relation: the means have the obligation to control it and the Government is interested in independent means that they inform him about the reality.
Some of the documents that endorse RCTV
- From the Declaration of the rights of the Man and of the French citizen of 1789 the previous license and the censoring give themselves the first recognition of the freedom of expression … From this moment, when they happen, they will mean state interventionism and political control.
The Declaration of the Human rights of 1948 of the United Nations already places like a human, universal right … The art. 19 says: "Everything individual has right to the freedom of opinion and of expression; this right includes of not being bothered because of his opinions, of investigating and receiving information and opinions and of spreading them without borders limitation for any expression way”.
- The Chapultepec declaration, at level of America. In his beginning specific 6: "the mass media and the journalists must not be an object of discriminations or favors in reason of what they write or say”; the beginning 7 recounts that "(…) the granting of radio frequencies and TV (…) must not be applied to reward or to punish means or journalists” and to tenth “any m ass communication media or journalist must be sanctioned for spreading the truth or formulating criticism or denunciations against the public power”
- Article 58 of the Venezuelan constitution: "The communication is free and plural, and endures the duties and responsibilities that the law indicates. Every person has right to information opportune, truthful and impartial, without censoring, in accordance with the beginning of this Constitution, as well as the right of reply and rectification when they turn out to be affected straight for inaccurate or offensive informations. The children, girls and adolescents have right to receive information adapted for his integral development”.
He must know that:
Reporteros without Borders has informed: "(…) The closing has been carried out violating all the rules of the right; the emission material has been impeded to give it to him to the new public channel. The invoked motives – and between others, the support that RCTV provided, along with other mass media, the attempt of coup d'état of April 11, 2002 – there are only pretexts: other channels of television that had identical attitude in that moment have not covered the same luck, because later they have adopted a complaisant position with regard to the diet."
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Gentleness of the supplement "Week" of The Time of Piura. Published on June 3, 2007