The government of President Hugo Chávez seeks to control the ideas of the media and impose silence, warned a report presented to the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA).

The report on freedom of expression in Venezuela, which was presented in the context of the 66th General Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), considered that the Venezuelan government has decided to use the seizure of companies as a means of social control and therefore it needs the silence of the media, AP reported.

"The bottom-line is that people has to depend on the State exclusively to find a job and have access to food," stated the report read over by David Natera, director of Venezuelan newspaper El Correo del Caroní and president of the Venezuelan Press Block (BPV), an organization that gathers the owners of Venezuela's major newspapers.

"In an attempt at achieving this perverse end, Chavez needs the silence of the media and journalists. Silence and fear that were typical of the sad, oppressed peoples of communist European countries, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union and today's Cuba under (Raul and Fidel) Castro," he reasoned.

According to the report, President Chávez wishes to "expropriate the Venezuelans right to freedom of expression and information." However, Natera thinks that journalism will not bend in Venezuela and it will fulfill its mission to report on the reality.

Based on the report, there have been 113 attacks against journalists thus far this year. Natera recalled that several media groups have consistently reported on violations to freedom of expression in private media by the government of President Chávez.

Among the attacks mentioned in the IAPA report, Natera highlighted "the systematic police and judiciary harassment instructed by Chávez against Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of the (private TV news network) Globovisión. When his rights were denied, Zuloaga went into exile to protect his physical integrity," DPA reported.

In addition to the 113 attacks against journalists in 2010, the report mentioned the case of journalists who have been sentenced to jail; legal actions against the media and the exile of a group of journalists.

Among the latter, the report mentioned Rafael Poleo, the owner and editor of El Nuevo País, a Venezuelan newspaper, and Zeta, a magazine, and Patricia Poleo, a journalist. Among the journalists who have been brought to justice, the report mentioned Gustavo Azocar, who was sentenced to two years and six months in prison and subsequently remanded on bail, and Francisco Pérez, a columnist of newspaper El Carabobeño, who was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison and was politically and professionally disqualified for presumably slandering a public servant.

In view of these attacks, "the independent media, which the government calls 'private media' are the ones that defend the Constitution, freedom of expression and the people's right to a free and uncensored information," Natera Febres said.

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas