Hugo Chavez Watch: Chavez Closes and Re-Opens Nationalized Venezuelan Television Station

A woman supporter of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez displays a doll representing Chavez during a demonstration organized by Venezuela’s embassy in Managua, Sunday May 27, 2007. The demonstration was to support Chavez’s decison of not renewing the license to broadcast of RCTV, Radio Caracas Television channel, the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach. The writing on the background pro-Chavez sign reads in Spanish ‘Yes to integration, Yanquis ( Americans ) out of our America’.

Venezuelan TV station goes off the air

Venezuela’s oldest private television station went off the air at midnight Sunday as thousands banged on pots and pans in protest against President Hugo Chavez’s decision not to renew the license of the opposition-aligned channel.

If the press disagrees or ridicules your government, then why not take over the press? In a blatant demonstration of government censorship, ala Cuba, and the Soviet Union, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez finds a solution.

Control the press – in this case television.

And when the people protest, stage a counter-demonstration and unleash the police and water cannon to stifle the dissent.

A water cannon sprays demonstrators during a protest against the closure of private network RCTV (Radio Caracas Television) in Caracas, 27 May 2007. Venezuela’s oldest television network has gone off the air at midnight in a move slammed by the opposition as a new push by President Hugo Chavez to tighten his grip on the nation’s media.

Will the print press that is mainly privately owned be the next to go?

Probably, if they criticize Hugo Chavez.