The Venezuelan government took several actions to control coverage of protests calling for President Maduro's removal, including banning drones to prevent aerial footage, expelling foreign journalists, and arresting a reporter who shared a video of Maduro being heckled. A member of parliament also intentionally shared a fake photo on Twitter depicting large pro-government crowds. An expert noted these tactics were meant to minimize witnesses and accurate reporting of the size of opposition protests threatening the government.

1. HO ME
 A woman bangs a pot to protest
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro
in Los Teques on the outskirts of
Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 7, 2016.
Venezuelans are marching in cities
across the country to demand
authorities allow a recall referendum
against Maduro to go forward this year.
(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
IN VENEZUEL A, C ONFLIC T EXTENDS TO PROTEST
REPORTING
 Tomás
O rihuela
 16 S eptember
2016
P RO G RAMS  STO RIE S  P RO JE CT
E X ILE
ABO UT
G J

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2. Misinformation, arrests deter demonstration
coverage
Tens of thousands of opposition protesters marched in the Venezuelan
capital of Caracas this month demanding President Nicolás Maduro be
removed from office by a recall referendum. The protests are the largest
since violent demonstrations shook the country two years ago.
But if you were observing protests on Sept. 1 through the tweets of Maduro
loyalist Diosdado Cabello, a member of Venezuela’s parliament and its
former speaker, you’d have thought tens of thousands had jammed
Caracas’s streets in support of the government. That’s because Cabello
distributed a photo of a huge crowd of people wearing red, the color of
Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
A member of the Venezuelan National Assembly posted an image on
Twitter on the day of the protest showing a large number of Maduro
supporters occupying the streets of Caracas.
La avenida Bolívar con nuestro hermano
Nicolas Maduro. Pueblo libre, soberano en Paz
pic.twitter.com/mVTc7ZYTRl
— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) September
1, 2016
“Bolivar Avenue with our brother Nicolás Maduro. Free, sovereign people in
peace,” Cabello wrote.
It was soon discovered that the photo was from a 2012 protest, and news
of the deception went viral. But Cabello’s tweet was just one part of the
Maduro government’s efforts to manipulate public images of the recall
effort in a country in the midst of economic crisis. Among its other tactics:
banning the use of drones to take images of opposition protests, barring
R EL AT ED P O S T S
Venezuela rifts
grow as protests
persist
Venezuela’s
descent
[program]
Twice-fired
Venezuelan
journalist fights
on
Venezuela’s many
crises
Project Exile:
Venezuela TV
journalist finds
security in Miami
Forced to resign,
Venezuelan
journalist thrives
online
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3. foreign reporters from entering the country and jailing a reporter who
shared video online of Maduro being heckled in the streets.
Of course such strategies are hardly new in Venezuela, where over 370
websites are blocked, about a third of which were news sites or blogs critical
of the government (the largest share were related to exchanging currency
on the black market), according to the PanAm Post. Under Maduro’s
socialist predecessor Hugo Chávez, penalties were toughened for speech
that “offended” government officials and broadcasting regulations used to
suspend and harass television channels, radio stations and web sites critical
of the government, as documented by Human Rights Watch and other
groups.
During Maduro’s tenure, the Chávez’s strategy has been extended to social
media. In one instance, government critic , Inés González Arraga was jailed
for over a year after tweeting that a slain member of parliament from
Maduro’s party was “a criminal who led a squad of terror and gave kids
guns.”
Robert Serra no era un ser humano, era un
criminal que comandaba colectivos del terror y
armaba niños. ¡Así que viudas, dejen el PEO! —
Inesita Terrible (@inesitaterrible) October 3,
2014
To learn more about the Venezuelan government’s efforts to control
coverage of the effort to recall Maduro, Global Journalist’s Tomás Orihuela
spoke with Carmen Beatriz Fernández, director of the political consulting
firm DataStrategia and a political science professor at Spain’s Universidad de
Navarra.
Global Journalist: There was a large
protest calling for Maduro’s recall on
Sept. 1. Can you give some examples
of how the government tried to
censor coverage?
Fernández: A few days before the
protest, the government began to
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4. Carmen Beatriz Fernández
(courtesy)
enforce a rule that prohibited drones
in order to avoid aerial pictures of
the march. Alejandro Puglia, who
works with the president of the
parliament [Henry Ramos Allup, of
the opposition Democratic Action
party], took videos from a drone,
and he was arrested.
Also, the day after the protest,
Maduro traveled to Margarita [a
Venezuelan island in the Caribbean]
in order to be surrounded by
supporters in a very pro-Chávez area
in [the town of] Villa Rosa. He was met by people banging kitchen pots and
shouting insults. Maduro exited his car and argued with the people. This
was filmed by dozens on their mobile phones and it spread nationally. The
hashtag #VillaRosa ended up trending for two days.
The first media outlet to publish this was Reporte Confidencial, and its
editor Braulio Jatar, was arrested hours later at his home.
GJ: In advance of the Sept. 1 protests an al-Jazeera camera crew and three
other foreign journalists, including NPR’s John Otis, were kicked out of
Venezuela. Is this typical?
Fernández: It was surprising. The Venezuelan government has been
shutting off dissident voices, but they’ve been doing this kind of thing in
much more subtle ways. [This] is going a step further. They felt the protest
was a threat to their interests, and that’s why they tried to minimize the
number of witnesses, even though they knew it would have a negative
impact.
GJ: Diosdado Cabello, a member of the legislature, shared a fake photo of
the protests showing the streets filled with government supporters . What
do you make of intentional misinformation on social media?
Fernández: Cabello has a whole production team for his social and for his
TV program. It wasn’t just a mistake. The fact that he tweeted this photo
didn’t make sense because it was easy to discover the truth.
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5. Note: Fernández’s interview was conducted in Spanish and translated and
condensed. With contributions from Anna Sutterer, Jonah McKeown and
Federico Maccioni.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story said Maduro
was heckled on the streets of Caracas. The episode occurred in Villa Rosa.
Colombia
Hugo
Chavez
Nicolas
Maduro
Press
Freedom recall Venezuela
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