By IANS
Paris : Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international non-governmental organisation devoted to freedom of press, has urged French President Nicolas Sarkozy to take up the issue of press freedom with his visiting Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, Spanish news agency reported Tuesday.
Chavez arrived here Monday to brief Sarkozy about his country’s efforts in brokering a deal between the government of Colombia and its main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), for the release of 45 high-profile hostages.
In a letter to Sarkozy, the secretary general of the press watchdog, said Chavez’s mediating efforts “must not be allowed to eclipse his government’s serious abuses or his behaviour on the international stage.”
“Rarely has a president posed so many obstacles to free expression in such a short space of time,” RSF head Robert Menard wrote.
“Chavez has used the abortive April 2002 coup against him – which, it is true, some media supported – as grounds not only for silencing critical and dissident media but also for gradually eliminating all forms of checks and balances and democratic opposition, especially the press,” the letter continued.
The RSF head also raised the issue of RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest television station, the license of which Chavez had declined to renew in May.
Though RCTV has resumed broadcasting via cable and satellite, governments and groups around the world have continued to protest Chavez’s decision to force the station off the air, a move the government justified by citing the channel’s support for the 2002 coup.
The letter also expressed alarm about the extent of Chavez’s influence over the media, as he controls seven TV stations, a score of radio stations, the sole telecommunications operator CANTV, the main national daily Ultimas Noticias, and around 60 local newspapers.
In his letter, Menard also suggested a dialogue between Caracas and the RSF on press freedom provided it withdrew claims that the latter was working for the US intelligence and trying to organise a new coup against Chavez.