By Ingrid Bachmann
The government of Hugo Chavez took 32 radio and two television stations off the air last year, and to remember the occasion, journalists, media workers and former employees of the closed stations participated in a demonstration that branded the government's action as "arbitrary and illegal", reported AFP.
Civil organizations and journalists complained that the "democratization of the radio spectrum" hailed by the government was just an empty promise, explained El Tiempo. The frequencies were reassigned to organizations like the Chavista National Assembly and other pro-Chavez groups.
Silvia Allegrett, president of the National Journalists Guild, told El Universal that the government's action created fear among stations still on the air. “I believe there is self-censorship, and a lot of fear," she said.
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.
