It’s been a tough old month for Caracas tabloid 2001, as they face two different forms of repression.
Last Friday, three journalists went down to Fuerte Tiuna to cover the Feria del Pernil, which is a special sale of subsidized legs of pork (pernil), a major part of Venezuela’s Christmas menu.
When the team captured a pernil skirmish (see photo), they were detained by the military police and held for seven hours.
After his release, photojournalist Jorge Santos Jr. had to be hospitalized because he was injured by several soldiers in the process, including a Brigadier General. They put the poor guy in a neck brace for the next two weeks. As an extra parting gift, Nicolás Maduro called him and his colleagues “agents of violence”.
As I mentioned earlier, 2001 was already in hot water before that: in response to this report on the supply to gas stations in Caracas (I couldn’t find the full report online), Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Diaz opened a formal investigation against the paper for allegedly “creating anxiety in the population”.
The investigation was opened in a matter of hours, right after Maduro’s public request fo it, and centers on Luz Mely Reyes, the paper’s uncommonly conscientious (and chavista!) editor. She insists that the editorial line of 2001 will continue to be the same as usual.
And what a coincidence, this happened at the same time of the creation of the CESPPA.
Free speech in Venezuela is having a very rough year. In the latest presentation before the IAHRC (even if we left the Inter-American Human Rights System, pending cases are still under review), several NGOs denounced the growing use of censorship against the press. But the government denies it and instead gets fake mad at Twitter. Because patria.
Caracas Chronicles 
Gustavo,
I think journalists in Venezuela now urgently need to shift to using hidden cameras, preferably hiding them within objects Guardias Nacionales are not likely to search…like a maths book.
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Apparently, there was more media outlets covering it. Just that the 2001 photographer caught that unscripted moment and, as one Ron Burgundy once said, “that escalated quickly”.
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One can only wonder what non criollo-versed English speakers would make of the wonderful term, “pernil skirmish”. Congratulations, Sir!
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les dio un ataque de patria
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The all important fact is that the repression is being directed at journalists that although generally sympathetic to the regime are more faithful to their journalistic principles and wont stop showing the news even if they make the regime look bad . Thats what this country most needs people who wont compromise their integrity no matter the threat and injury to their persons !!
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BB,
good luck finding them…any small problem and the they repress it Cuban style.
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