Last week, the President of the Media Commission of the National Assembly, Manuel Villalba, declared that tomorrow, September 21, he’ll file a petition before the National Prosecutor against several websites (link: ES [1]). The cause: during a spate of deceases of people belonging to the high spheres of the government, several people expressed their enjoyment for the deaths, in diverse social networks and forums. Regarding this matter, legislator Gustavo Capella declared that this investigation should also encompass twitter and facebook.
As you might remember, this isn’t the first time [2] that representatives of the Venezuelan government make public statements against social networks [3]. Also, a few days ago, an engineer of the state electric company [4] (Corpoelec) was arrested under the charges of “public incitement to hatred” (link: ES [5]), for posting a twitter message containing an edited picture of the President, where he has wounds in the face, allegedly showing how he could be killed. Days later, he was released under probation.