Press horror in Venezuela! Film at 11!

Oh. Oh. Oh my gawd. This is simply terrible!

Scathing UN, OAS report gets quick results as Venezuela announces federal government will start investigating press crimes

By Tania Lara/ZD

A commission formed by the Venezuelan National Assembly approved the federal government to investigate crimes against journalists with the cases to be tried in local courts, reported the newspaper El Universal.

The announcement was made a day after rapporteurs from the United Nations and Organization of American States presented a report on freedom of expression in Venezuela blasting the country’s slow response to end the culture of impunity surrounding crimes against the press. Venezuela’s chronic violence against journalists has earned it the dubious honor of most dangerous country in Latin America for press workers, according to several organizations.

The Venezuelan and South American office of Article 19 also denounced the Venezuelan government’s scant attempts to address impunity for crimes against journalists at the 143rd Assembly of the Inter American Commission of Human Rights in Washington, D.C., reported the website Ciudadanía Express.

The organization criticized a lack of protocol and specific strategy for responsible organizations to investigate killings and disappearances of journalists, and the tendency to discredit journalists before the investigation begins. There is also no mechanism for journalists under threat to solicit protection, reported Cuidadanía Express.

So far in 2011, 13 journalists have been killed in Venezuela and only two of the cases have been solved.

Yikes. Why haven’t we heard of this till now? Has the Venezuelan government actually managed to censor all that information from our view? Evil Hugo Chávez, that dictator must go. NOW!

Okay. In case you were wondering, yes, the above report is true. But it’s not about Venezuela. Clicky the linky, kiddies. It’s about none other than MEXICO.

Yes, that’s right…it’s MEXICO, not Venezuela, that has a press-freedom problem in which journalists are getting murdered by the baker’s dozen. The actual number of journos killed in Venezuela this year so far?

Zero. Cero. Nullkommanix.

And the worst “persecution” that any so-called journalist in Venezuela can complain of? Losing their over-the-air broadcast licence due to violations dating back to many years B.C. (Before Chávez), and oh yeah, fines for broadcasting extensive putschist propaganda.

How horrible those poor Venezuelan journos have it compared to those lucky Mexicans, eh?