A court in Caracas has issued a temporary injunction to prohibit the publication and circulation of satirical magazine 6to Poder after it published a cover with six Venezuelan government officials portrayed as cabaret dancers on 21 August. On the same day, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service arrested the magazine’s editor, Dinorah Girón, and put out a warrant for the arrest of the president of the company, Leocenis García.
A journalist with newspaper El Mío, was beaten and then detained as he left the newspapers premises in Anzoátegui, northeastern Venezuela. Óscar Tarazona was getting into a car when he spotted the police officers, Tarazona claims he walked over, identified himself as a journalist, and officers proceeded to beat him, handcuff him and take him to a police station. The initial attack was caught on video. Tarazona was released and subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office. The state’s chief of police, Francisco Ortiz, said that he stood behind the officers.
Venezuelan reporter Carlos Sánchez was threatened with a pistol when he left the offices of Radio Fe y Alegría in the city of Maracaibo on 1 August. The unknown gunmen beat and robbed Sánchez, and then drove him around the city for an hour before releasing him. In a separate case in the country, a programme on radio station Primerísima 98.5 FM, Magazine Informativo, was last month cancelled just fifteen days after its first broadcast due to political pressure. Presenter and journalist Henry Viola said the station’s director informed him the show would be cut “following orders from above”.
Venezuelan journalist Clara Fernandez has been killed in a shooting in Valencia. She was allegedly caught in crossfire in a fight between two rival gangs. The details relating to her death are as yet unclear. The Venezuelan National Journalism Guild is pressing for the state authorities to investigate.