Miguel Otero, owner of the expropriated newspaper El Nacional: "Chavismo will not be able to silence us"

The Chavista mortar continues to crush institutions and rights in Venezuela. Miguel Otero, owner of the newspaper El Nacional, tries to defend one of the most powerful and veteran journalistic voices in America. And it does so in Madrid by the Cremades y Calvo-Sotelo law firm. In a press conference, he announced three legal actions of an international nature, exhausted and discarded all local initiatives due to Chavista control and abuse of Venezuelan justice.

These measures are: go to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the International Criminal Court, where they will add this case to the long list of crimes already registered against the Nicolás Maduro regime.

Miguel Otero explained at the conference how the attempt to close his newspaper is not something new, but rather began with “the cut in the supply of paper, compensated for a long time by the generosity of other newspapers in Latin America with their shipment of paper. But that, in the long run, was unsustainable, which is why we are going to continue only as a web page that Chavismo will not be able to silence.”

Chavismo's last battering ram against El Nacional came in the form of a “defamation case”. The Venezuelan newspaper echoed, like 80 other major newspapers, a story published on ABC about the process that the DEA, the US anti-drug agency, was following against Diosdado Cabello, number 2 of the revolution. Despite the fact that the news was true, the regime denounced Otero's newspaper and the Chavista court sentenced the publishing company to pay Cabello $13 million “to restore his honor.”. “The response of the Venezuelan dictatorship has been to militarily take over the El Nacional building, which happened 15 days ago in what is the latest attack against independent journalism and a violation of the right against freedom of expression.. Now the newsroom is taken over by the National Guard,” says Otero.

“They go for our material goods. The building is worth about 40 million dollars. It is an illegal and concealed expropriation”, assures Otero. Javier Cremades, president of the law firm, affirms that “defending El Nacional is defending democracy in Venezuela. That is why we have to resort to international instances. It is a struggle of good over evil.”

For Javier Cremades, “there is no option for El Nacional in the Venezuelan justice system because it no longer respects any rights. The limits of the State no longer exist in Venezuela”. Otero also pointed out that his three children remain in the country. “If anything should happen to them due to the regime’s harassment, I hold Diosdado Cabello directly responsible”. Otero revealed that it is common practice of Chavismo to repress lawyers who defend these cases, as well as the ransacking of their offices. “My daughter has a rented office in the same building as El Nacional, but her activity has nothing to do with it. They didn’t care, they ransacked it too”, says Otero.. Vicente Martín, partner of the law firm, insisted that the case of El Nacional, in the long list of persecution of independent media by Chavismo, is paradigmatic: “An autocratic and military power that subjugates Venezuelan institutions. I wonder how far the indignity of the Venezuelan courts can go,” Martín said. “It’s the exercise of justice in pursuit of a sovereign injustice.”

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