Foreign Journalists Expelled from Venezuela

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Thirteen foreign journalists have been expelled from Venezuela since January, according to the Venezuelan National College of Journalists (CNP), the body responsible for awarding the professional accreditation.

“With the Venezuelan regime’s decision to prevent John Carli from entering the country, deportations of foreign journalists have totaled 13 throughout 2019,” the CNP announced on its Twitter account.

The figures were released after authorities declared ‘persona non grata’ and expelled English journalist and writer John Carli, who works for the Argentine daily El Clarín, at the Simón Bolívar de Maiquetía International Airport on Monday.

John Carli intended to cover an event on the Venezuelan crisis and his expulsion is “a new violation of freedom of expression,” according to the NPC.

“The government presided over by [Nicolás] Maduro has banned journalist John Carli, an expert in negotiations, from entering Venezuela to take part in an event on solutions that have been found for conflicts,” explained the NPC.

According to Christopher Barnes, director of The Gleaner, the journalist’s expulsion is part of an “anti-freedom reaction that the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) has been denouncing for more than a decade”.

The IAPA itself has denounced the expulsion, which it says “adds to the long history of violations of freedom of expression and the press by the Nicolás Maduro’s regime”.

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