Venezuela row over TV shutdown spills to Internet
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| Published on Saturday, June 2, 2007 |
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MIAMI, USA (AFP): While thousands of Venezuelans demonstrate in Caracas against the government shutdown of opposition RCTV, TV and radio operators, pro- and anti-government bloggers have taken their fight to the Internet.
Despite going off the air Sunday when its broadcasting license was not renewed by the government, RCTV still sends out its main news program "El Observador" morning, noon and night, through YouTube, Internet's video-sharing network superstar, employees of the now-pirate TV station said.
The 45-minute program is also retransmitted Monday-Saturday at midnight by Colombia's international TV channel Caracol and a host of Internet radio stations working mostly out of Miami, Florida.
But the busy pro-RCTV crowd are faced with a cyberwar of their own, as their signal is often garbled and made unattainable in Venezuela by hackers some believe are supported by the Venezuelan government.
"We've come under attack and a good many of our servers are damaged," Paul Sfeir, head of Miami's RadioNexx Internet radio, told AFP. Besides RCTV's program, RadioNexx also provides up-to-date news from Venezuela.
"It's all coming from the (Venezuelan) government," Sfeir said of the interference. "They know what they're up to and we have the means to identify where the attacks are coming from."
Pro-RCTV hackers are also putting their own moves on Caracas.
Venezuela's Ombudsman German Mundarain has been bombarded with cyber-insults for allegedly refusing to help secure the release of nearly 200 protestors, mostly students, arrested this week by police.
At one point, the Ombudsman's website crashed under the onslaught, a situation Mundarain said was the result of "planned sabotage."
The websites of Venezuela's National Assembly and state-run Food Markets have also crashed under cyberattack on Friday.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday refused to renew the broadcasting license of Venezuela's oldest and most popular television channel, RCTV, accusing it of subversion.
The move touched off massive protests around Venezuela and a barrage of criticism worldwide, including a US statement urging Chavez to reverse policies that "limit freedom of expression."
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