The Venezuelan Government's Rhetorical Contortionism

Not to be outdone by the Chinese, the Venezuelan government has decided to tighten the gag on the country's independent media to fight "new forms of criminality that have arisen as a consequence of the abusive exercise of freedom of information and opinion."

The government's excuse just missed one of the usual justifications, protecting national security, but its intentions are just as repressive.

Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz, in a speech before Congress, promoted a bill named Media Crimes Law, which would make the practice of independent journalism in Venezuela a big step closer to a Utopian enterprise.

Latin America Herald Tribune:

It was necessary, she argued, to bring in new laws to provide “an appropriate protection of the citizens who are left defenseless against the irrational use of power by the media.” Just in case anybody hadn’t got the message, she added: “It is necessary that the Venezuelan state regulates freedom of expression.”

There was a limit to freedom of expression, she claimed, and she urged legislators to put that limit in place. Regulating the conduct of “the owners of the media and all the people who work in them” was a priority for the country, she said, and nobody should be allowed to get away with “committing punishable things nor helping to commit them.”

Neither could the media be allowed to “generate intranquillity, nor alter social peace or public order, nor generate a sense of impunity through news items.” What the media instead had to do was “comply with an educative function” as was stipulated by the constitution.

While Ortega Díaz spoke in general terms of the media, all the indications were that she did not have in mind state broadcasters – who, their critics claim, are all too willing to do the government’s bidding.

In a shameless exercise of rhetorical contortionism, Ortega said she is out not only to limit freedom of the press but to regulate it, adding that there are no states where "conducts are not regulated." Even so, she insisted "we are promoting" freedom of expression.

Can it get much more Orwellian than this?

Comments

[Billy Jones]

Very Interesting Article!