Venezuelan TV station claims exclusion

Globovisión, the last Venezuelan television station to remain critical of President Hugo Chávez, says it is being “arbitrarily excluded” from a new digital television system, which will force it off public airwaves.

With Chávez’s battle against cancer triggering speculation that he may be forced to quit power, critics see the move against Globovisión as a sign that a new government without the firebrand socialist leader would be no less radical. Vice-president Nicolás Maduro, whom President Chávez designated as his successor before undergoing cancer surgery in December, described the launch of the free digital television system as part of the government’s attempts to install “communicational and cultural socialism.” He added that it will help to control content that “has promoted pornography, drugs, prostitution and the promotion of the use of weapons.” Other private television stations -- that toned down their criticism of the government since their biased coverage during a 2002 coup -- were included in the new system. Globovisión’s exclusion was tantamount to a “death sentence”, said its co-founder Alberto Ravell.