IAPA fingers the Venezuelan Gov't for silencing independent voices
The chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Claudio Paolillo, denounced this "crafty and hardly creative manner of silencing the independent and critical voices in the country" by putting restrictions to get supplies for the production of printed media
Some inland newspapers had to stop publishing due to lack of supplies (File Photo)
EL UNIVERSAL
Tuesday October 01, 2013 03:25 PM
The government of President Nicolás Maduro was accused by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) for "maintaining a convenient double morality" in financially strangling Venezuelan newspapers by restricting their access to imports of supplies essential for their publication.
In reacting to an editorial on Sunday by local newspaper El Impulso, explaining that it will be reducing the number of its pages and the use of color due to a lack of production supplies, the chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Claudio Paolillo, denounced this "crafty and hardly creative manner of silencing the independent and critical voices in the country," a IAPA press release noted.
The editorial in El Impulso, published in Barquisimeto, northwestern Lara state, said that after 11 months of complaints there persists an "official silence" and it has been unable to have the government authorize access to foreign currency for the purchase of newsprint, ink, printing plates, spare parts for its presses and other essential materials.
Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, remarked that this was a "convenient double morality of the government of President Nicolás Maduro, a kind of programmed shortage."
"On the one hand, the government accuses private businessmen of speculating and causing the problem of shortage of products of primary need for the family shopping basket, while it omits to refer to the lack of supplies for the publication of newspapers, the government being the only one responsible that can authorize their importation."
The newspaper explained that "it has been a real Calvary" to obtain import permits, an issue that IAPA has been insisting for several weeks now, after it was learned that a number of inland newspapers had to stop publishing due to lack of supplies, among them El Sol de Maturín in Monagas state; Antorcha in Anzoátegui state; El Caribazo, La Hora and El Caribe in Nueva Esparta state, and Los Llanos and El Espacio in Barinas state.
In order to import foreign supplies and goods' newspapers (or newsprint distributors) need to have a foreign currency quota that is granted by the Foreign Exchange Administration Commission (Cadivi) after receiving a "certification of products not nationally produced," which in the first instance should be issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MILCO). This can take months to occur.
