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Journalists intimidated and prevented from covering disputed presidential elections in Venezuela

*This article was updated on July 30, 2024.

 

Journalists were intimidated and blocked from reporting as Venezuelans headed to the polls in a controversial presidential election on July 28. Additionally, press freedom organizations reported that at least three professionals were detained.

The Venezuela Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reported at least 41 violations against information freedoms in 13 states of the country throughout election day to July 29. Of those 41 cases, 27 were restrictions on access to information and 12 were physical or verbal attacks. The rest included an arbitrary detention and a deportation.

Previously, the organization Espacio Público had reported at least 30 complaints of violations of freedom of expression, 26 of them related to intimidation of members of the press. Among the victims of the cases registered by Espacio Público are at least 32 journalists, seven media outlets, two photojournalists and a cameraman.

Several acts of intimidation against members of the press took place in voting centers throughout the country, according to both organizations. These included preventing reporters from entering polling stations, preventing them from interviewing voters and taking photographs of them.

Journalist Rafael Ramírez, from digital media outlet Noticias Todos Ahora, received threats and was intimidated by a member of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB, for its acronym in Spanish) at a voting center in Puerto Ordaz, in the state of Bolívar. According to the media outlet, the GNB accused its reporter of “instigating hatred” for trying to interview people who complained about the removal of a voting machine due to alleged defects.

Noticias Todos Ahora said a member of the GNB ordered a group of people on motorcycles to photograph Ramírez and the taxi in which he was forced to leave the scene.

Espacio Público reported that Luna Perdomo, journalist from Tal Cual, was intimidated by an official of the National Armed Forces (FAN), who asked her to leave a voting center located in a school in Caracas even though she was accredited by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“I asked her why I should leave the polling station if I was doing my job. In fact, at that moment I was sitting writing some posts for the social network X,” Perdomo said in a video on her personal X account. “She told me that I had to leave and she was asking me to leave the center before she was going to take me out.”

The National Union of Press Workers of Venezuela (SNTP) reported that journalist Daniela González, from local newspaper La Nación, was removed from another voting center in a school in the state of Táchira, despite also being accredited by CNE. The person in charge of the electoral center told her that she could only interview people from the ruling party, as reported by the organization on X.

The SNTP also reported that journalist Francesca Díaz, from the newspaper Correo del Caroní, was intimidated at the voting center where the governor of the state of Bolívar went to cast his vote. According to the organization, an unidentified subject tried to take away Díaz's accreditation and photograph her while she was recording protests against the governor.

“When he came out after voting, the governor was booed. After recording the situation, Díaz made a radio report and the unidentified citizen approached her and asked who she was,” the SNTP reported on social networks. “‘If incorrect information about the governor comes out, I know who to blame,’ he told her.”

In the state of Cojedes, media Últimas Noticias, VTV, Venevisión, Digital Visión and Agencia Cojedeña de Investigacion were intimidated by officials of Plan República, the name for the military operation launched during electoral processes in Venezuela. IPYS reported that an attempt was made to prevent representatives of these media outlets from accessing a voting center even though they had CNE accreditation.

When the media outlets finally managed to enter, representatives of Plan República prevented them from capturing images, IPYS reported on its X account.

On the morning of July 28 in the state of Delta Amacuro, individuals traveling in a National Electric Corporation vehicle cut electricity to the building where Radio Fe y Alegría 92.1 FM and the regional television station Ka Ina TV operate, and where the newsroom of the digital news program Tane Tanae runs, workers from the media outlets told SNTP.

Although service was restored some time later, Espacio Público described the incident as an attack and attempted censorship.

Attacks and intimidation acts against journalists covering the electoral process began even before election day. The National College of Journalists (CNP) reported that weeks prior to election day it had recorded at least 102 attacks on journalists and media outlets, according to La Patilla.

In the month of July alone, the organization registered the blocking of 12 news sites. Furthermore, at least 14 radio stations had been closed in previous months. The CNP also registered at least 31 cases of intimidation, nine cases of harassment and 12 cases of reporters' work being prevented.

For its part, IPYS documented that on July 27, Colombian journalists Vanessa De La Torre and Carolina Trinidad, sent from Caracol Radio, were expelled from Venezuela. On her X account, De La Torre published a photo of a document with the seal of immigration authorities at the Caracas international airport. Per the document, she is considered “inadmissible” to Venezuelan territory for not meeting “the migratory profile to enter the national territory.”

Argentine journalist Jorge Pizarro, from network Radio Rivadavia, was also deported in the days leading up to the election, according to IPYS. Pizarro told his media outlet that at the Caracas airport, Venezuelan officials denied him entry into the country, seized his passport, interrogated him 10 times, took 14 photographs of him in different places and made him record a video in which he had to say who he was and what he intended to do in Venezuela, according to the organization.

Arbitrary detentions

On election day, organizations defending press freedom also recorded that at least three members of the press were detained.

Early on July 29, the SNTP reported that agents of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) detained Spanish journalist Cake Minuesa, a reporter for the digital media outlet OK Diario.

Minuesa allegedly said the results of the election – which preliminarily gave the victory to President Nicolás Maduro – constituted electoral fraud, according to Espacio Público.

Hours later that same morning, OK Diario reported that its reporter had been released “after intense and discreet efforts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” and the Spanish embassy in Caracas. Minuesa was transferred to Bogotá and then deported to Spain, the European media outlet said.

On Sunday, July 28, journalist Erika Rincón and cameraman Miguel Pachano, from Diario Órbita, in the state of Anzoátegui, were detained while recording audiovisual material in Plaza Bolívar in the city of El Tigre, according to the SNTP. The journalists were allegedly using a drone to capture aerial images, according to the organization.

The journalists were taken to an Urban Security Detachment by Plan República officials, according to the local newspaper El Tiempo. Five hours later, Rincón and Pachano were released after signing a release document, although their drone was confiscated.

 

*This article was updated to include more up to date information from IPYS Venezuela.

Translated by Teresa Mioli
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