Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ruled that broadcasting equipment and infrastructure used by a television channel critical of leftist President Hugo Chávez be made available to the state-run TV channel that will replace it.
The Supreme Court said on Friday on its website that Venezuela’s telecommunication commission will assume responsibility for Radio Caracas Television’s (RCTV) equipment, including microwave dishes and antennas, while the court reviews RCTV’s appeal of Chávez’s decision not to renew its licence.
The court also ordered the military to guard temporarily the equipment used by RCTV, Venezuela’s most widely watched channel, which is scheduled to go off the air at midnight on Sunday.
Chávez defends the decision to not renew RCTV’s licence as a legal move to democratise the airwaves by reassigning the licence to a public-service channel, while critics call it an attempt to silence criticism of the leftist president.
RCTV’s general manager, Marcel Granier, said Friday’s court ruling is the product of ”the immense pressure the government has put on magistrates” to guarantee that RCTV is shut down as planned. ”This equipment belongs to RCTV,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, talk-show host Miguel Angel Rodriguez, whose programme is a daily rant against Chávez, ended his segment by blowing a kiss to the camera and saying defiantly: ”There is no goodbye. It’s ‘see you later’.”
Information Minister Willian Lara has said the new channel, TVES, will start broadcasting in every corner of Venezuela early on Monday, raising suspicions among Chávez opponents who said the new channel does not have the necessary equipment to reach nationwide.
Allegations rejected
In a speech on Friday that Venezuela’s private TV channels were obliged to broadcast, Chávez rejected allegations that his decision threatens freedom of expression. ”There is no country in the world where there is so much freedom of expression,” he said. ”The licence expires at midnight on May 27, and it’s not going to be renewed.”
Chávez accuses RCTV and other opposition-aligned private media of supporting a failed 2002 coup against him.
Inside the studios of RCTV, the mood was sombre yet defiant, with some employees wearing T-shirts reading ”No to the closing”. ”There is a lot of uncertainty. It’s very hard,” technician and 22-year RCTV veteran Alejandro Gonzalez Natera said, wiping away tears as he spoke.
Some of the station’s 2 500 employees will stay on to produce soap operas that air on other stations throughout Latin America.
Founded in 1953, RCTV broadcasts a mix of talk shows, sports, telenovellas and the popular comedy programme Radio Rochela, which often pokes fun at Chávez. RCTV has regularly been the top channel in viewer ratings.
Criticism
Groups such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters sans Frontières have called the government’s move a flagrant effort to silence criticism, and the United States Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday passed a resolution condemning it. It was sponsored by Republican Senator Dick Lugar had bipartisan support, including Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a branch of the Organisation of American States, warned on Friday that failure to renew RCTV’s licence would contribute to ”the progressive deterioration of freedom of expression in Venezuela”.
Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon — a close Chávez confidant — defended the legality of the government’s plans while accusing the commission of bias against Chávez’s administration, saying ”everybody knows the prejudice of that commission”.
”What we are doing is within the framework of the law,” Chacon said during an exclusive interview. ”From the legal point of view, it’s a decision that is totally in line with the law.”
Dozens of protesters wearing bandanas over their faces held a rowdy demonstration to back the RCTV shutdown late on Friday outside the privately owned Globovision TV channel, spray-painting the building with pro-Chávez slogans. — Sapa-AP