Chávez Assault on Freedom of Expression Continues

The new media law in Venezuela I wrote about here has now been signed into law. Since I have been characterized by Chávez supporters as a "Chávez loather" and Chávez opponents as someone who should "refrain from saying anything at all" about Venezuela, I'll let others comment about the new law.

Human Rights Watch:

“This legislation severely threatens press freedom in Venezuela,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Its vaguely worded restrictions and heavy penalties are a recipe for self-censorship by the press and arbitrariness by government authorities.”

The Inter-American Press Association:

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed strong criticism of the newly-passed Law on Social Responsibility of Radio and Television in Venezuela, calling it a “clear interference in news media content and a restriction of the work of journalists to report and provide opinion, under the pretext of promoting programming that protects children and adolescents.”

Reporters Without Borders:

Reporters Without Borders said today it was "extremely concerned" by a "vaguely-termed" new law about the "social responsibility" of the Venezuelan media that "might be used against those that did not agree with the government."

"It will give the authorities wide powers to impose heavy fines and suspend or cancel broadcasting licences and will result in self-censorship by media or abuses by the authorities," it said. The second reading of the measure was approved by parliament on 24 November.

"The government promised to consult many sectors but the proposed law was not altered significantly and the final version retained the two most dangerous clauses for press freedom. These were that the body overseeing compliance with the law was still dominated by officials of state institutions and that "provisional measures" could be taken to impose formal censorship.

Reporters Without Borders wrote to information minister Andrés Izarra on 20 October that "to prevent any misuse of it, the law should be implemented by a body independent of the government" and called for the system of "provisional measures" to be dropped. The worldwide press freedom organisation said it did not in principle oppose a law that spelled out the obligations of broadcasting licenceholders.

Draw your own conclusions.

Comments

[Marc Cooper]

Good post, Randy. Pobre Venezolanos... Caught between the vile Chavez and the vile folks in the opposition. What a dismal political culture the elites have produced in that country-- both purposefully and inadvertently. The Venezuelan media sucks. So does Chavez. The press law sucks e=ven more.

[Randy Paul]

Thanks, Marc. I met Duncan Black (aka Atrios) very briefly in New York in August and he commented to me that he didn't envy me taking on Venezuela. I think the fact that the opposition supporters and the Chávez supporters both feel I'm not being accurate tells me that I probably am being accurate. My argument has always been that as bad as Chávez is, he didn't occur in a vacuum. If you want to avoid Chávezes in the future, you can't maintain the status quo ante Chávez. Similarly, if Chávez wants to effect lasting change, he won't accomplish by alienating a major portion of society. I guess my way of nuanced thinking just isn't appreciated these days :-(

Pobre Venezuelanos indeed.

[roger]

Somehow, I doubt the logic, flattering as it may be to one's ego, that being criticized by both sides in a political matter makes one right. Or even impartial.

Chavez's censorship rules should be properly knocked. But the problem of a monopolistic media consortium deciding to control what gets shown on the news -- and skewing it as outrageously, up to and beyond the point of propaganda -- should also be knocked.

The future solution, hopefully, will be the end to the radio/tv waves technologies as we know them -- as Lessig has pointed out, the monopoly of airwave space claimed by the state is now technologically obsolete. However, it is claimed by the state -- so that in the U.S., the FCC takes it upon itself to fine, for indecency, NBC and Fox (which, vide Frank Rich's article in the Times this Sunday, is spreading censorious waves via media space concerning gay and women's rights); and in Venezuela, Chavez is seeking to perpetuate himself via self-serving media laws.

But to get yourself honestly hated by both sides, you shouldn't cherrypick the story. Surely, this story goes back to the way the media corporations in Venezuela have treated Chavez from the beginning. It also goes back to his popularity in the country, which these same corporations have wanted to abort in the most undemocratic of ways.

So -- a media monopoly in a small nation decides to mount a campaign of lies to maintain the rule of a governing class with which it is comfortable. So, what is the solution to that? Competition? Where is the capital for that going to come from? An impartial FCC like bureaucracy? Well, that has had a pretty poor record in the U.S. so far.

Myself, reading both pro and anti-Chavez accounts, and reading the chapter on Venezuela's recent history in The Blood Bankers (James Henry -- essential background reading) makes me think that the person who democratically defeats Chavez will have to be more to the left, and more honest, than any of Chavez' predecessors. That's a good thing.

[Randy Paul]

Somehow, I doubt the logic, flattering as it may be to one's ego, that being criticized by both sides in a political matter makes one right. Or even impartial.

Oh please. I am being attacked by extremists on both sides in a debate in which there is plenty of blame on both sides to go around. Both sides of this discussion seem to be enamored of their echo chamber. The opposition seems to think that Chávez grew up out of the ground like a weed in a field of tulips, without the slightest interest in acknowledging the grotesquely unjust society in which he became popular. Similarly, the pro-Chávez forces - especially the ones here in the US - seem to think that he should be judged by a different standard because he is helping the poor. God forgive me for being consistent in condemning the blinkered view and denial of much of the opposition and arrogant, caudilloesque tendencies of the pro-Chávez side.

Where is the capital for that going to come from?

Oil. Why not spend some of the riches PDVSA has been able to haul in to do a better job of getting your message across? It's far better to have more voices than to try to constrain the ones that are out there.

As for the Law on Social Responsibility of Radio and Television, it hasn't stopped there. This week Chávez is expected to sign into law a new penal code that will increase the jail time for libel from 18 months to four years, slander from 8 days to a year with no exemption for statements directed at public officials. Why? I can only imagine to stifle dissent. Now that he has been busy packing the courts, it seems unlikely that any law designed to stifle dissent can be challenged successfully. Thanks, but I'll defer to the judgment of the IAPA, RSF and HRW here.

I see nothing that I've cherry-picked here. The opposition has a lot to answer for: the attempted coup; the reckless and debilitating strikes and the other non-democratic attempts to remove Chávez.

Chávez fails to realize, however, that genuine change comes from persuasion, not from intimidation and his leadership has been one of intimidation. Let's not forget that he attempted a coup once before. Yes I know Carlos Andre Perez was a corrupt bastard, but there's a way to remove people like that: elections. If Chávez wants to make his changes lasting ones, he should consider making an effort to persuade his critics and not simply plow over them. George Bush may have said "You're either with us or against us", but I have little reason to believe that Chávez doesn't share that sentiment.

[roger]

"Yes I know Carlos Andre Perez was a corrupt bastard, but there's a way to remove people like that: elections."

Elections, as you should know, have different valences. For instance -- Yeltsin's election in 1994 was engineered, openly, by oligarchs who feared the communist party, in cooperation with Clinton's administration. Their maine weapon was control of the media. Or, to take a more Western instance, Berlusconi in Italy exists as a public figure and as the prime minister of Italy because of his monopolistic control over the media.

Which leaves us... well short of Chavez's attempt to censor, but short, also, of a freedom of speech issue. This is where the cherrypicking comes in -- for what you don't address is the role of the media giants in setting up the golpe. If you leave that out, than you leave out why they are vulnerable to Chavez's maneuvers. It is hard to support freedom of the press when the press has recently cooperated with a faction of the armed forces to overturn political freedom in general. These things have consequences -- a loss of trust being one of them.

To regain that trust doesn't mean flattering Chavez, or supporting censorship. And elections are good. There was, in fact, a recall election the opposition lost.

Which has had a predictable result. Since the media has been ... abused for partisan ends by the owners of the media, and since that media has already shown that they would support, to the max, stifling the free speech of Chavez's supporters, it makes it harder to defend them from state codes, right? Myself, I'd like to see regulations that would deflect the owners of the media from using them as a personal weapon IF they have a certain majority percentage of the media market. This isn't really difficult. Lawyers have to abide by a code. Doctors have to abide by a code. Media companies having to abide by a code ensuring editorial independence -- one that would merely put up some obstacles between the ownership and the editorial direction -- seems like a good idea. This is different from Chavez's regulations, which are corrupt and corrupting.

However, you seem to have no sense of how media has lost trust by its systematic lying. Or do you think they haven't been systematically lying?

[Randy Paul]

There are two major problems with your argument:

1.) Events contradict your presumptions here. In other words, if the media has been so poisonous and so full of lies as you claim it has, been, then Chávez’s election victory and referendum victory would show that the media has very little impact on influencing public opinion. (You will note, by the way, that I have never made claims of election fraud in the recall referendum). Which leaves this question: why is there a need for a new media law? If, as you presumptuously and arrogantly believe that I “seem to have no sense of how media has lost trust by its systematic lying” then certainly the Venezuelan public does.

2.) You are speaking in sweeping generalizations. Are we to believe that there is no other media source in Venezuela that is capable of showing a contrary point of view to Cisneros & Co.? Please correct me if I am wrong, but I will assume that you are not in Venezuela. Neither am I. Thus we are burdened with having most of our news filtered not once, but often twice. Thus one has to consider the source of what they are reading. As I said before, I seem little reason to suspect the word of the IAPA, HRW and RSF.

My issue with Chávez is one of leadership style. While I think that many of his goals are admirable, his arrogant style of leadership will, in my opinion, eventually lead to the undoing of some of the good that he may accomplish. I worry that there will be a reactionary response in Venezuela once Chávez is out of power. As Arturo Valenzuela, a man much more knowledgeable about these issues than either one of us made the following important point here:

Democracies are forged when opponents finally realize that they need rules for mutual restraint in order to agree to disagree peacefully; that ultimately such rules are the best guarantee of genuine security and progress.

(This applies to both sides in Venezuela, lest you accuse me of being unfair) You don’t accomplish this by stifling free expression, packing the Supreme Court, engaging in or supporting military coups and seeking to alienate a significant portion of your population. Latin America has seen to much of this and it doesn’t need to see it again.