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Cell
phones charge on a government-supplied generator during a blackout in Caracas,
Venezuela on July 22, 2019. On February 1, 2022, five private internet service
providers blocked three independent news websites in the country.
(Reuters/Manaure Quintero) |
The
Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday that fresh prohibitions on a
handful of Venezuela's few surviving independent news websites are a disturbing
indicator of rising press suppression.
Journalists and analysts claim that for the first time, private internet service providers (ISPs) are restricting the sites, despite the fact that they have been unreachable on government-run networks for years.
According
to Venezuela Sin Filtro, a watchdog project that monitors internet censorship,
private ISPs Movistar, Digitel, Inter, NetUno, and Supercable began blocking
access to news websites Efecto Cocuyo and Crónica Uno, as well as EVTV Miami, a
streaming station that covers Venezuela, on February 1.
"This
is a complete blockade," Celina Cárquez, editorial director of Crónica
Uno, told CPJ via text message. "The hyperlinks aren't working."
"This is the first time something like this has happened to us." The
ban had also been extended to new networks, according to Efecto Cocuyo and EVTV
Miami's websites.
"We
are quite worried to see private companies ostensibly carrying out state
restrictions," Carlos Martnez de la Serna, CPJ's program director in New
York, said. "The traditional media landscape in Venezuela has been
decimated, and independent news websites are among the last remaining sources
of information."
For
more than a decade, the state-run internet service provider CANTV has blocked
various news websites critical of the country's authoritarian government, but
they remained accessible on the 25% of residential internet connections
provided by private companies until recently, according to Andrés Azpurua,
coordinator of Venezuela Sin Filtro, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Private
ISPs blocked 35 independent news websites during regional elections in
November. It's unknown how many are still off-limits to the general public, as
some private Internet service providers allow access while others don't.
By
messaging app, Luis Carlos Daz, president of the Venezuelan chapter of the
Internet Society, which promotes free internet access, told CPJ that private
ISPs are under government orders to block these websites, and that
noncompliance could result in their closure.
"This
is a severe attack on press freedom since it will result in these news
organizations losing a portion of their readership and, as a result,
funding," Daz added.
CPJ
attempted to contact each of the five companies but received no response. The
government's telecommunications regulator, CONATEL, has not commented publicly
on the recent run of outages, and CPJ's calls and emails for comment have gone
unanswered. According to Diaz and Venezuela Sin Filtro, ISPs have a long
practice of not discussing their relationship with the government.
In
a Twitter thread on Wednesday, the National Union of Press Workers, a
Venezuelan press freedom organization, criticized the blockades, claiming that
President Nicolás Maduro's government had spent years clamping down on news
websites to "restrict access to objective news."
According
to CPJ research, independent news websites have grown in importance in
Venezuela as President Nicolás Maduro's government attempts to limit the power
of independent newspapers, television, and radio stations through fines,
defamation lawsuits, advertising boycotts, and other tactics.
CPJ
has recorded the blocking of independent news websites in Venezuela in recent
years.
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