Venezuela Country Safety Page

A car drives on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela, September 29, 2017. A Dutch freelance journalist said Venezuelan security forces detained him on September 21, 2017 while he was on a reporting trip in the country's southern mining district. (Reuters/Ricardo Moraes)

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is partially covered by a television camera as he addresses the media during a news conference at Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela October 17, 2017. (Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)

Updated November 9, 2017

As the political situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate, journalists covering protests have been routinely targeted, harassed, attacked, and detained. To provide concrete safety information for local and international journalists covering the unrest, CPJ’s Emergencies Response Team is issuing periodic updates on the political situation and the climate for journalists.

This page contains the following information:

  1. What to expect next
  2. Press freedom violations
  3. Political background
  4. The protests
  5. The key groups
  6. Hospitals and other resources
  7. CPJ’s Safety Advisory for journalists covering Venezuela

1. What to expect next

After months of daily protests and repression, many members of the opposition are exhausted and disillusioned, particularly after failing to stop the constituent assembly vote on July 30, 2017. Opposition candidates suffered widespread losses in gubernatorial elections on October 15, further weakening their political movement.

Now that the assembly has been installed, it is unclear if the opposition will be able to stay unified or what its goals will be going forward. Opposition strategy is evolving. Demonstrations continue, but according to the Caracas-based human rights non-governmental organization Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, the number of protests decreased by 80 percent from July through the first half of August. Protests are also receiving less attention from international press. On August 30, the U.N. human rights office issued a report that said Venezuelan security forces had committed widespread and deliberate human rights violations in their response to the street protests, according to news reports.

Although protests have diminished, Venezuelan authorities continue to detain civilians. More than 600 people are currently detained, which legal nongovernmental organization Foro Penal, has said raises concerns about human rights violations.

Still, all major cities continue experiencing regular disturbances and road blocks. Caracas continues to be the epicenter of the most violent protests, but violence has also escalated in Maracay, Barquisimeto, Valencia, and Lechería and Puerto la Cruz in Anzoátegui.

Meanwhile, the new constituent assembly has taken steps to consolidate power and weaken the opposition politically.

On November 8, the assembly unanimously passed a restrictive anti-hate law that punishes anyone who instigates hate or violence on the radio, television or via social media.

Members of a “colectivo” pro-government group attack Leonardo Rodriguez (center), a photographer for the pro-opposition newspaper El Nacional, as he covered a student protest at Venezuelan Central University (UCV) in Caracas, April 3, 2014. (AFP/Federico Parra)

2. Press freedom violations

Journalists covering the protests have been attacked and harassed by all actors involved, though armed civilian groups known as colectivos and Venezuelan state security forces are responsible for the majority of incidents, according to local press freedom organizations. Physical violence against journalists has declined as protests tapered off, but government censorship of radio and TV stations continues to affect the press.

Journalists covering protests in Venezuela generally face the following threats:

Detention

National Guard and police have detained journalists covering protests, sometimes for as little as 15 minutes, and sometimes overnight in police or intelligence facilities. In one instance, on May 1, members of a reporting team for the online platform VivoPlay were detained in Caracas. The two VivoPlay reporters were released after several hours, but their drivers remained in detention until June 2, according to media reports. In April, two journalists with French photo agency CAPA were removed from their flight back to France and held for nine days without charge. Venezuelan officials have previously deported international reporters or blocked them from entering the country.

Physical aggression

Security forces and colectivos (see section 5 for more details on the actors involved) have threatened and blocked journalists from covering certain locations, confiscated equipment, photographed identification, and detained reporters for multiple hours. Several videos posted by news outlets have documented National Guard officers rolling tear gas canisters in the direction of journalists. One video from VivoPlay shows a National Guard official telling journalists to move away, “or we’ll treat you like the guarimberos.”–groups of civilians who construct barricades and roadblocks. See section 5 for more details. Journalists should avoid colectivos as much as possible and relocate to a safe location if they encounter them.

Dozens of journalists across the country have reported their cell phones have been stolen by National Guard or police as well as colectivos and civilian gangs. Journalists working in Caracas told CPJ that the theft of phones is so systematic and widespread that it appears to be part of a deliberate strategy to prevent reporters from covering protests. These tactics are especially damaging to freelancers and journalists working for smaller publications outside of Caracas, who have limited resources and rely on their phones as a vital reporting tool.

Meanwhile, protesters have also targeted journalists, robbing them, attacking them, and accusing them of being government sympathizers. Though there are no credible reports of guarimberos directly targeting reporters, journalists should use caution when dealing with them.

Censorship

In addition to direct physical threat against journalists, the government has censored news outlets.

At least 49 radio stations have been shut down and five international TV channels were removed from national subscription services under government orders, according to a statement from the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Venezuela’s state telecommunications regulator CONATEL ordered two international news channels off the air on April 19, according to the broadcasters, and other outlets have reported service interruptions. On July 13, CONATEL instructed the media not to refer to the referendum as a “popular consultation,” which is how the opposition defines it, and informed radio broadcasters that their licenses could be revoked if they appeared to promote or encourage participation in the referendum, according to news reports.

At a press conference on July 28, Tibisay Lucena, president of the National Electoral Council, the entity responsible for overseeing the voting process, announced that media outlets would be required to stay at least 500 meters (approx. 1,600ft) from voting centers. The council also denied credentials to at least nine of the 15 media outlets that requested credentials to cover the July 30 vote, according to the Caracas-based Institute for Press and Society (IPYS Venezuela).

During a television appearance on July 31, President Maduro also called for CONATEL to investigate the privately owned television network Televen for “apologizing for crimes,” according to news reports. Maduro criticized Televen for its coverage of the vote, saying the outlet instead preferred to show “the fire in Altamira”–referring to an explosion in a Caracas neighborhood that injured at least three police officers, according to reports.

On August 22, Maduro ordered Reuters reporters based in Venezuela to leave a press conference at the Miraflores presidential palace, the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) reported. Two days later, CONATEL ordered Colombian TV networks Caracol TV and RCN to be taken off the air indefinitely for broadcasting a message it said incited violence toward Maduro, according to news reports.

IPYS Venezuela, the SNTP, and local press freedom organization Espacio Público have documented hundreds of press freedom violations via Twitter. CPJ is aware of the following serious attacks on journalists covering protests in Venezuela:

Week of November 5

Week of October 29

Week of October 22

Week of October 15

Week of October 8

Week of October 1

Week of September 17

Week of September 10

Week of September 3

Week of August 27

Week of August 20

Week of August 13

Week of August 6

Week of July 30

Week of July 23

Week of July 16

Week of July 10

A protester poses in Caracas, June 14, 2017. (AP/Ariana Cubillos)

3. Political Background

Venezuelan opposition supporters have been protesting against the government of President Nicolás Maduro since late March, when the country’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of stripping the opposition-led National Assembly of its lawmaking powers. This wave of anti-government demonstrations, the longest since 2014, has become violent in many parts of the country. As of August 6, the attorney general’s office had recorded 121 people killed over 120 days of protests. Of those, 19 percent are younger than 18, and an additional 58 percent are between 18-29 years old. According to the official report, state security forces and armed paramilitary civilian groups are responsible for 65 percent of the deaths.

There are two main parties involved in the current political crisis. One is the governing Socialist Party (PSUV) led by President Maduro, who has attempted to continue the populist Bolivarian Revolution movement of his predecessor Hugo Chávez. The other is the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), a coalition of opposition political parties. Though Venezuela’s political opposition has historically been fractured, a March 29 Supreme Court ruling (later reversed) that stripped legislative power from the opposition-led National Assembly inspired disparate factions of MUD to work together in collective opposition to Maduro. MUD has several leaders, including Henrique Capriles, the governor of the northern state of Miranda and a candidate for president; Leopoldo López, a former politician currently under house arrest; and National Assembly President Julio Borges.

The Supreme Court in July granted house arrest on humanitarian grounds to López, who had spent more than three years in the Ramo Verde military prison serving a 14-year sentence for inciting violence.

On July 30, the Venezuelan government held a controversial vote to convene a constituent assembly with the authority to rewrite the country’s constitution, which the opposition had used as a rallying point since protests began in April. Despite an opposition-led boycott, the vote went forward, resulting in the election of 545 predominantly pro-Maduro delegates, including first lady Cilia Flores, former National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello and former foreign minister Delcy Rodríguez, now president of the constituent assembly.

Opposition leaders have described the constituent assembly vote as a power-grab and an attempt to interfere with local and national elections previously scheduled for 2017 and 2018, respectively, according to news reports. It is now unclear when these elections will take place, or how the constituent assembly will affect them.

In its first act after convening on August 4, the assembly decided to fire Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz, who had emerged as one of the strongest critics of Maduro within the government, replacing her with Tarek William Saab, the former national ombudsman. The assembly has taken additional steps to consolidate power, including establishing a “truth commission” whose responsibilities include investigating opposition candidates running in October’s gubernatorial elections to ensure they were not involved in the protests.

Amid reports of rising discontent among members of the armed forces, on June 27 a former police inspector allegedly stole a helicopter and staged a brazen attack on government institutions in Caracas, firing at the Interior Ministry and dropping grenades on the Supreme Court. Tensions escalated further on August 6, when a group of armed men in military uniform attacked the Fuerte Paramacay military base in the northern state of Carabobo, according to press reports. Two people were killed and eight were arrested during the attack. In a video shared on social media, a man who identified himself as retired National Guard Captain Juan Carlos Caguaripano declared that he and the other men were staging a “rebellion” against a “murderous tyranny,” according to reports. More than 120 members of the military have been arrested since the protests began in April, according to news reports.

4. The protests

Early demonstrations were organized by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) and affiliated activists. As the protests have continued, other actions have been sponsored by an increasingly diverse range of organizers, including student groups, teachers and other civilian groups.

Marches normally begin at a predetermined meeting point where protesters gather for two or three hours. They then move toward city centers where government ministry offices are located. Organizers across the country have led recent marches to Public Ministry offices in a show of support for Ortega. Protesters are also holding protests that involve blocking all surrounding streets, which are referred to as trancazos.

In Caracas, the capital, protests have many different route options, but security forces typically stop them after only a short distance. Police and National Guard place barriers, armored vehicles equipped to fire tear-gas canisters, lines of police and soldiers, and vehicles equipped with water cannons.

Around the country, Venezuelan state security forces, including the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), national police (PNB), and state police, have used tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to disperse crowds. Hundreds of people have been injured and arrested.

In a press conference for international media on June 23, President Maduro stated that he had given a “clear order” to security forces not use firearms against protesters, according to news reports. However, state security forces and armed civilian groups have repeatedly fired live rounds into crowds of demonstrators, resulting in multiple deaths and dozens of injuries. The weekend of the constituent assembly vote was the most deadly stretch to date, with at least 13 people killed in protests and clashes across the country on July 29 and 30, according to reports.

Meanwhile, customs officials have banned the import of protective items used by both journalists and protesters, including helmets, gas masks, and bulletproof vests, according to news reports. The same ban has also blocked imports of first aid supplies and goods used by protesters to protect themselves, such as antacids, eye drops, and stretchers.

The following locations are the sites of most, though not all, of the documented protests and violent incidents. Journalists should take additional precautions when reporting there:

Protesters unload pallets from a truck they forced to stop on a highway in Caracas, May 22, 2017. (AP/Fernando Llano)

5. The key groups

State security forces are responsible for the majority of incidents of harassment, threats, and violence against individual journalists. However, belligerent groups from across the political spectrum are also present at demonstrations or hotspots throughout Venezuela’s largest cities.

Many are armed with different types of weapons and all pose a potential threat to journalists. They include pro-government armed groups known as colectivos, which operate sometimes in support of security forces and sometimes alone, and protester barricades, known as guarimbas, which most often appear along main roads and in opposition-friendly neighborhoods.

Colectivos maintain a significant presence at demonstration sites. They primarily consist of former police officers, military, or security service personnel. Members are usually dressed as civilians, though some wear black jackets and masks. They typically carry small arms, though some have also been seen with rifles or machine guns. Colectivo members usually travel in groups of two aboard motorcycles.

Colectivo members have fired directly into protests and are allegedly responsible for a number of protester deaths, according to reports. They have also threatened, physically attacked, and robbed journalists.

On July 5, a group of about 200 Colectivo members attacked the National Assembly building. They trapped more than 300 people in the building, including 108 journalists, 94 deputies and 120 workers, and held them there for more than seven hours, according to news reports. At least 12 people were injured, and digital news outlet Vivoplay reported that members of Colectivos threatened journalists with pipes and rocks and stole cameras, microphones, and other equipment.

Guarimbas, or protest barricades, which first appeared during the 2014 protests, are commonly manned by university or high school students, known as guarimberos. The barricades are made of materials ranging from bags of trash to tree trunks and stolen vehicles, such as trucks or buses, which guarimberos sometimes set on fire. Local reports indicate that some guarimbas in Caracas have included gangs who have extorted drivers and forcefully collected money from passersby. There are also reports of these groups using violence. Some street demonstrations and roadblocks are now led by more radical groups of protesters, who call themselves the “Resistance,” rather than those affiliated with the MUD political movement, increasing the possibility of violent confrontations with security forces.

6. Hospitals and other resources

In Caracas, most of the people injured during protests are treated by volunteer field medics (including the Red Cross, Blue Cross and the newly formed Green Cross, which is staffed by medical students). Next, victims are often transferred to medical facilities such as Salud Chacao, or, in the case of serious injuries, to private facilities which have modern equipment and good qualified staff.

CPJ does not recommend that victims go to public hospitals. These hospitals have excellent staff and significant experience with trauma injuries, but currently have very limited equipment and supplies. Patients may have to supply their own bandages, sutures, or even blood.

Below is a list of medical facilities in different locations:

Caracas

Salud Chacao

Prolongacion Av. Libertador, con Sorocaima, Urb. El Rosal

Tel: 0212-9532263 / 0212-9537685 / 0212-9538002

Clínica El Ávila

6ta Transversal con Avenida San Juan Bosco, Caracas

Tel: 0212-2761111

Clínica Sanatriz

4ta. Avenida cruce con Calle 2, Edif. Higea, Urb. Campo Alegre, Caracas

Tel 0212-2016604 / 0212-2016255

Hospital Clínica Caracas

Av. Panteon con Av. Alameda, Urb. Bernandino, Caracas

Tel 0212-5086111.

Centro Medico La Trinidad

Avenida Intercomunal La Trinidad, El Hatillo, Apartado Postal 80474

Tel: 0212-9496411.

Valencia

Ciudad Hospitalaria “Henrique Tejera”

Av. Lisandro Alvarado. Valencia Edo. Carabobo

Tel: 0241-8316551 / 0241-8316662.

Centro Policlínico Valencia C.A. (Clínica La Viña)

Urbanización La Viña, final Av. Carabobo.

Tel: 0241-8236372 / 0241-8239759 / 0241-8236276

Cruz Roja

Av. Bolívar Norte, Calle López Latouche, Cruz Roja Hospital Luis Blanco Gasperi, Prebo.

Tel: 0241-8214841 / 0241-8215330 / 0241-8239843.

Barquisimeto

Sociedad Venezolana De La Cruz Roja Del Estado Lara

Avenida Intercomunal de Barquisimeto. Patarata.

Tel: 0251-2543354.

Cruz Roja El Trigal Cabudare

Cabudare, Municipio Palavecino, Avenida El Placer, entre Transv. 07, Urbanización El Trigal.

Tel: 0251-2619236.

Hospital Central de Barquisimeto

Sede Principal de Hospital Central Universitario Dr. Antonio María Pineda.

Av. Vargas, con Av. Las Palmas, Casco Central.

Tel: 0251-2523301 / 0251-2519498.

Maracay

Centro de Atención de Emergencia 171

Maracay Avenida Sucre. Urbanización los Olivos Viejos.

Tel: 0243-2416267.

Cruz Roja

Maracay Avenida Mariño diagonal Plaza Girardot.

Tel: 0243-2465358 / 0426-3499406.

Policlínica Maracay, C.A.

Urb. Calicanto, Calle López Aveledo Norte, Número 5 (Frente a la Maestranza).

Tel: 0243-2472001.

Centro Médico de Atención Social CANAOBRE

Prolongación de Pérez Almarza, entre Páez y Negro Primero, Maracay, al lado del Banco de Venezuela y Diagonal al Centro Comercial de la Economía Informal, Calle Pérez Almarza.

Tel: 0243-2475183.

7. CPJ’s Safety Advisory for journalists covering Venezuela

General advice:

Tear gas:

Dealing with aggression:

If you are attacked, threatened or otherwise intimidated while covering these events, you can contact CPJ by emailing report_violation@cpj.org.

For more information on basic preparedness, assessing, and responding to risk, or covering safety measures when covering civil conflict and disturbances, we encourage journalists to review CPJ’s Journalist Security Guide.

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