The Venezuelan National Assembly on Thursday began discussing a measure that would create an unprecedented crackdown against the media.

The law, if passed, would send offenders to prison for up to four years for spreading information that could be interpreted as an incitement to violence or that could affect Venezuelans' mental health.

Attorney General Luisa Ortega detailed the Special Law Against Media Crimes, telling the Assembly that it is a legal instrument ``to regulate the conduct of the communications media and those who work in it.''

``The communications media cannot be utilized to commit punishable offenses,'' Ortega said.

`EVERY PERSON'

In addition to directors of private and public media, the measure also covers ``every person who expresses himself through any communications medium, whether it be print, television, radio or any other nature.''

It also describes as media crimes the ``actions or omissions'' that threaten ``the social peace, the security and independence of the nation, the public order, the stability of the institutions of state, the public mental or moral health by generating a feeling of impunity or insecurity.''

A media executive may be imprisoned for six months to two years if he refuses to reveal the identity of a writer who does not sign articles considered to be offensive or alarming, or uses a pseudonym for the purpose.

``Media coercion'' -- defined as the use of a medium ``to threaten, intimidate, coerce or in any other way spread terror among others'' -- is punishable by imprisonment of one to three years.

A WIDE NET

The bill is seen by labor unions, academics and media owners as a direct attack on private media that cover the government of President Hugo Chávez.

The legislation will have ``terrible consequences for everyone's daily lives,'' warned the National College of Journalists in a communiqué issued Thursday.

``What does the Attorney General's Office understand media crime to be?'' the document asks. ``The deliberate use of an adjective? A passionate public argument between two columnists? A humorist's political parody?''

The announcement comes amid threats issued by Chávez to shut down the Globovisión news channel and start administrative proceedings against more than 240 radio stations. It also comes a day after the arrest of journalist Gustavo Azócar in the state of Táchira for alleged contempt of court, in the case of a judge who forbade him to report on a case against him. Azócar was accused of collecting advertising money from the Táchira Lottery without broadcasting the commercials on his television program.

The bill has 17 articles and a proviso that repeals any other law that ``collides'' with the measure, according to a copy obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

The bill states that a firm sentence against offending media can be published only once and forbids any ``comments'' or any critical observation or commentary about the sentence.

According to Andrés Cañizales, a professor at the Center for Communications Research at Andrés Bello University in Caracas, the law would be one of the most punitive ever proposed by the government.

SHIFT IN POWER

Cañizales told El Nuevo Herald that, after a decade in power, Chávez ``understands freedom of expression from a point of view that certain expressions must be punished.''

He also expressed his concern about the practical application of the bill.

``Part of the problem is that it will grant judges very broad powers to decide, for example, when a message harms the population's mental health, or when some information is destabilizing,'' he said.

José Miguel Vivanco, director of Washington-based Human Rights Watch, warned that if the bill is passed, it will constitute ``a most grave setback for freedom of expression -- one more in Venezuela -- and a step back throughout the region,'' according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Venezuela would become the only country in Latin America that ``systematically retreats when it comes to freedom of expression,'' Vivanco said.

Casto Ocando can be reached at cocando@elnuevoherald.com

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