Venezuela mulls tough media law
That would be the same as using the headline "Slight Tremor In San Fransisco" to describe the San Fransisco earthquake of 1906. What Hugo Chavez - the Castro mini-me dictator of Venezuela - is really doing is killing off what remains of his country's the free press. Under this "tough media law" as the BBC calls it, anyone who publishes, or it seems is involved in publishing, "information which attacks 'the peace, security and independence of the nation and the institutions of the state'" is subject to 6 months to 4 years in prison. According to the BBC, one of the 'incidents' that Chavez and gang points to in justifying this Stalinist like law is:
a recent advert in national newspapers by a right-wing think tank, Cedice, which shows a naked woman next to the slogan "The Social Property law will take all you've got, Say No to communist laws".
Only in a country run by a far left dictator can making a political statement opposing socialism be equated to attacking "the peace, security and independence of the nation and the institutions of the state."
Almost as disturbing as Chavez's destruction of the Venezuelan free press is the deafening silence of the western media. I simply do not understand how journalists in the west can ignore the systematic destruction of a free press in what was once a democracy. Guess they are too busy covering the Beer Summit.
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