Journalists on the front line in Maduros’ brutal media crackdown

BOGOTA — As soldiers and police began beating a group of protesters on a street in Caracas, journalist Gregory Jaimes whipped out his phone to film.

Noticing him, one of the Venezuelan national guardsman raised his riot gun and opened fire.

Hit in the face and arm by a round of rubber bullets, Jaimes, 27, felt his gas mask filling with blood.

Video shows him falling to the ground and a flash grenade exploding nearby before he is dragged away by colleagues amid clouds of tear gas.

“I thought I would die out there by bleeding to death,” Jaimes told The Sunday Telegraph.

“In that moment I still didn’t know I had been shot by rubber bullets, I didn’t know what it was.”

Jaimes was one of 12 members of the media to suffer physical attacks by the forces of Nicolás Maduro’s regime on Wednesday alone, according to the Venezuelan press union, SNTP.

On Tuesday, Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly leader recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate president by more than 50 countries, launched a military uprising, sparking street protests across the country.

Since then, the SNTP has documented a campaign of repression and censorship against journalists as the Maduro regime tries to maintain control of the narrative.

Under Maduro, the media crackdown that began under his predecessor Hugo Chavez has deepened, with independent outlets largely banished to the internet.

As those with access watched Guaidó’s surprise appearance alongside a group of soldiers and the freed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez outside a Caracas airbase, the challenge to the socialist government was entirely absent from state TV.

As unrest erupted around the country, internet services were also blocked by the state provide, Cantv.

Satellite television was targeted too, with the government ordering operators to pull CNN and BBC Mundo from the air after they broadcast images of tanks mowing down protesters.

A Caracas radio station was also abruptly shut down.

“Persecution against journalists and media outlets has become a state policy in Venezuela and a way to censor and get rid of the free press,” Edgar Cardenas, secretary general of the country’s National College of Journalists, said.

“It’s so the average citizen only has a single vision of what’s happening.”

Websites and online TV channels — such as the live-streaming news service VPI Tv for which Jaimes works — are the hardest to censor. They often play a cat-andmouse game with the government, for example by changing domain names.

“Digital outlets have gotten around censors, but in recent days we’ve seen even social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram temporarily blocked,” said Jaimes.