Venezuela: Ministry of Communication and Information Responds to Statement by VHeadline Group
By the Ministry of Communication and Information
Published by Aporrea.org | Thursday, 9 June 2005, 10:14am | During the last few days we have been receiving a series of telephone calls and electronic messages from people who are honestly and reasonably very concerned about reports received from the foreign agency VHeadline, wherein this group accuses the Ministry of Communication and Information (MCI) of intending “to subject VHeadline.com, as a publication headquartered abroad, to a series of conditions and regulations that cannot be tolerated under any circumstance.”
In its communiqué, VHeadline adds that the MCI has attempted to force it to register in Caracas, “solely for the purpose of thus satisfying the domestic and political whims of the Venezuelan bureaucracy.” The Ministry of Communication and Information appreciates the value of information published in English by VHeadline, but that publication cannot be above the norms and requirements that we are subject to under the law in Venezuela for purposes of negotiating our information guidelines.
We alert public opinion to the fact that, because of this situation, owing strictly to the observance of the laws currently in force in our country, the VHeadline agency has announced that it “will launch a campaign to discredit this institution.”
The Ministry of Communication and Information reiterates before national and international public opinion that, in its capacity as the body governing information policy for the Venezuelan State, it cannot accept blackmail or threats of any nature, and that it will continue to act in adherence to the laws of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Issued in Caracas, 8 June 2005.
Translation by W.K.
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