By Isabela Fraga
On Tuesday, Sept. 4, officials from the Venezuelan broadcaster Globovisión asked the Attorney General to end "unfounded accusations" by government officials after one of the channel's employees was supposedly involved in a shootout, reported the website La Información.
The allegations were made by Vice President Elías Jaua and Interior and Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami, reported the newspaper El Nacional. El Aissami accused a Globovisión news team of illegally entering a socialist production unit near Caracas and provoking the gunshots. Jaua led a public condemnation of the supposed invasion, reported the news agency EFE.
According to the website El Impulso, the statement from Globovisión to the Attorney General condemned the government officials' declarations "accusing us of indiscriminately provoking violence and generalizing a concrete and specific situation that supposedly involved a Globovisión employee when the Public Ministry's investigations into the event have only just begun."
The broadcaster also asked the Public Ministry to "guarantee the human rights of the those under investigation [...] that they be judged by an independent and imparcial court without interference or pressure from President Chávez and his collaborators," reported the website Noticias 24.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
