Venezuela: Facebook User Detained for “Destabilizing” Photograph
This post was co-authored by Marianne Diaz and Luis Carlos Díaz.
On April 16, two days after presidential elections in Venezuela, the Interior and Justice Ministry detained Andrés Rondón Sayago, a citizen who allegedly spread photographs of burning ballots. Officials say that the photographs were taken during 2007 elections, not in the present day. Rondón Sayago was detained, accused of sharing the photograph with “destabilizing intentions.” According to Ministry officials, Rondón Sayago works as security employee up a private television station. The Minister for Information tweeted:
Detenido sujeto que difundió imágenes falsas de material electoral de 2010 para desestabilizar aporrea.org/actualidad/n22…
— Ernesto Villegas P. (@VillegasPoljakE) 16 de abril de 2013
A subject who spread fake images of electoral material from 2010 [intending] to destabilize has been detained http://t.co/MCmgveBsux
Soon after, Jorge Galindo, head of public relations for the Interior and Justice Ministry, tweeted a picture that showed Rondón Sayago along with this message:
OJO: Este sujeto confesó que la foto difundida por el en redes sociales sobré material electoral son del proceso 2007 twitter.com/JorgeGalindoMI…
— Jorge galindo(@JorgeGalindoMIJ) 17 de abril de 2013
The subject confessed that the picture spread by him in social networks about electoral materials is from the 2007 process pic.twitter.com/EMTwoXkpcQ
Galindo later tweeted [es] a link to a video, uploaded to the A Toda Vida Venezuela (“Venezuela Full of Life,” a government program intended to reduce crime) YouTube channel, where Rondón Sayago issues an official statement in which he declares to have published the picture “by mistake” via Facebook, and asks people to “stop publishing this kind of material” and avoid situations of “terrorism”. The video [es] can be seen below.
Several incidents of online censorship have been reported from Venezuela in recent years. In 2010, two Twitter users were detained by police for allegedly “spreading false rumors” about the banking system. Last month, a woman was detained for tweeting a comment about Hugo Chavez's demise. All of them have since been released on parole.
12 comments
I would hope that the Venezuelan government would consider my book destabilising!!
It poses a lot of questions about Maduro and the failings of Chávez. Details on blog above.