Students protest closing of Venezuelan Channel RCTV

May 29, 2007

On May 27th, the Venezuelan government refused to renew the license for public television station RCTV to continue broadcasting, sending troops to shut down the station and seize equipment to ensure the station did not continue broadcasting.

Thousands of people have been protesting the closure of one of the few public channels within a country in which a majority of citizens do not have cable television. The current protests have been led by students from some of the major Venezuelan universities including Universidad Simon Bolivar, Universitad Central de Venezuela, and Universidad Metropolitana.

Caracas Metropolitan Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds. The protests have been going on the whole weekend and have continued through Monday.

The Chavez government has replaced RCTV with a new pro-government public channel TVes. Supporters of Chavez cheered in some parts of the country.