Silencing the Opposition

This is what silencing your opposition looks like. It's going on in Venezuela, courtesy of [T]hugo Chavez.

He's shutting down television stations that broadcast the voice of the opposition. Chavez doesn't like opposition voices. He snuffs them out, claiming that they're trying to incite violence against him.

Hours after President Hugo Chavez shut down Venezuela's main opposition broadcaster, his government has demanded an investigation of news network Globovision for allegedly inciting an assassination attempt on the leftist leader.

Chavez has taken Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, off the and replaced it with a state-run channel to promote his socialist programs. The move sparked international condemnation and accusations from the opposition that he was undermining democracy in the OPEC nation.

Protests over the closure of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest private channel, Continued to simmer in several Venezuelan cities. In some locations, the police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Seizing on the momentum of RCTV's closure, Communications Minister Willian Lara presented a case to the state prosecutor's office saying experts hired by the ministry had found that opposition broadcaster Globovision was inciting assassination attempts on Chavez.

As evidence, he cited Globovision showing footage of an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981 accompanied by the song "This Does Not Stop Here," sung by Ruben Blades, now Panama's minister of tourism.

Chavez isn't above using force either.

Chavez isn't content going after domestic networks either. He appears to have CNN in his sights as well.