The board of directors of the Venezuelan National Press Workers' Association delivered on Wednesday a letter to the attention of to Florencia Saintout, the dean of the Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication, Argentina's La Plata National University to refute the granting of the Rodolfo Walsh Journalism Prize to Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez.

The guild "is astounded to learn that the Rodolfo Walsh Journalism Prize of the La Plata National University was conferred upon President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chávez."

"Our union, to turn this year its 65 anniversary and an advocate of the rights of press workers in Venezuela, has borne witness, and has recently denounced so at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to multiple actions taken under the government of President Chávez to create censorship and self-censorship among journalists and independent media and establish in Venezuela what was termed by current Information Minister Andrés Izarra as communications hegemony," they noted.

"The onslaught of the government of the prize recipient includes access to information, attacks, harassment of journalists, shutdown of media outlet, economic siege on media and criminalization of opinion."