Venezuela prevents the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) and other international news channels from broadcasting freely in the country. The move came after DW’s Spanish-language television channel aired a report calling Venezuela “the second most corrupt country in the world” and implicating high-ranking officials in criminal activities such as cocaine trafficking and illegal mining.
Communication Minister Freddy Ñáñez accused DW of “promoting hatred” and defaming Venezuela, which led to DW’s withdrawal from the country’s main cable networks, Supercable and SimpleTV. President Nicolás Maduro further justified this action by calling DW a “Nazi” broadcaster during a televised speech.
CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, Cristina Zahar, condemned the Venezuelan government’s actions, stating, ““By taking DW off the air over a critical report, the Venezuelan government is once again demonstrating its overt hostility to press freedom in the country”. Additionally, In a statement issued on Tuesday, DW’s CEO Peter Limbourg declared that “This restriction of DW’s broadcast is a serious encroachment on the freedom of the people in Venezuela to find independent information themselves.”
This incident reflects a broader pattern of media censorship in Venezuela, where multiple international media outlets have been banned from broadcasting amid political tensions ahead of the upcoming July 28 presidential election, in which Maduro is seeking re-election.