PROJECT SPECIAL LAW AGAINST MEDIA CRIMES

Article 1. Objective of the Law. This law has as an objective to prevent and sanction the
actions or omissions spread through the communication media which may constitute
crimes; this is the purpose of achieving a balance and the harmony between the rights to
freedom of expression and timely, accurate and impartial information, and the right to
the internal security of the citizens, in accordance with the laws and treaties, agreements
and arrangements, subscribed and ratified by the Republic.
Article 2. Concept of communication media. To the effects of this law, communication
media are those apt for transmitting, divulge, broadcast and spread, in a stable and
periodical manner, texts, sounds or images destined to the public, whatever the support
used may be.
Article 3, Active subjects. The following persons may incur in the crimes foreseen in
the present law;
A. The owners and any other person who occupies a directing position in
communication media be it printed, television, radio or of any other nature, both public
and private.
B. National independent producers, journalists, presenters, lecturers, actors and any
other person who express themselves through any communication medium, be it
printed, television, radiophonic or of any other nature.
Article 4. Definition of media crimes. Are considered as media crimes the actions u
omissions that harm the right to timely, accurate, and impartial information, that attempt
against social peace, security and independence of the nation, public order, stability of
the institutions of the State, public and moral mental health which generates a sensation
of impunity or insecurity and are committed through a social communication medium.
Article 5. Divulgation of false news. Any person who divulges through a
communication medium false news which causes a serious alteration of public calm,
panic in the population, which has maintained it in fear, which has altered public order,
that has produced harm to the interests of the State, will be punished with imprisonment
of two to four years.
The same punishment will be applied to the person responsible of the social
communication medium.
Article 6. Manipulation of news. Any person who manipulates or distorts the news,
generating a false perception of the facts, or creating a matrix of opinion in the society,
as far as it has aggrieve social peace, national security, public order, and public moral or
mental health, will be punished with imprisonment of two to four years.
The same punishment will be applied to the person responsible for the social
communication medium.
Article 7. Negative to reveal information. The director, manager, editor, or responsible
for the social communication medium who refuses to reveal the identity of the author of
the journalistic issue or article published under pseudonymous or anonymously, when it
has been requested by the Public Ministry will be punished with imprisonment from six
months to two years.
Article 9. Mediatic coercion. The director, manager, editor or responsible for the social
communication media who uses it to threatens, intimidates, coerces, or in any other
manner generates a fear to others will be punished with imprisonment of one to three
years.
Article 10. Voluntary omission of supplying information. The owners, directors o
responsible for social communication media who voluntarily and without justification
refuse to inform on facts or situations which failure to divulge represents a lesion to the
right of information consecrated in article 58 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, will be punished with imprisonment of two to four years.
Article 11. Instigation. That who by any communication media makes publications or
radio communications intended to promote war, violence hatred, hostility among the
inhabitants or collectivities, because of their race, creed, sex, religion, nationality,
ideology or political militancy, will be sanctions with imprisonment of two to four
years.
The same punishment will be applied to the responsible of directors of the social
communication media publishing or transmitting these messages.
Article 12. Blocking of activities of communication media. Every person who hinders,
or prevents by coercion, violence, threat, deceit or bribery, the free performance of any
social communication medium, public or private, harming the right to accurete, timely
and impartial information to which are entitled all the citizens, will be punished with
imprisonment for one to three years.
Article 13. Exceptions of responsibility. The responsible for the social communication
media will not incur in the crimes foreseen in the present law by comments issued by
those individuals accidentally participating in alive transmission, which include
intervention of public, as long as the issuer of the message is warned that they could be
incurring in violation of law.
Will be also exempt of penal responsibility those responsible for social communication,
regarding opinions expressed by parliamentarian in the exercise of their functions, in
conformity with the established in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela.
Article 14. Accessory Sanctions. In case that the responsible for a social communication
medium is condemned through final firm sentence for the commission of a media crime,
will be suspended as responsible for the social communication medium in discussion
during the time of imprisonment. For the same time will be disabled for holding
directive posts in other communication media.
In case of an independent national producer, as a sanction accessory to the penalty
imposed for the commission of the media or communicational crime, they will be
revoked of the certificate which credits them as such.
Article 15. Publication of judgment of conviction. The trial judge will order that the
final firm sentence, fallen on a case related with the commission of a media crime be
published in one only opportunity on the cost of the condemned and in preference place
on the editorial page of the printed medium. Of divulged in stellar time thru the
communication media in which the crime was committed, through the seven (7)
following days after issuance. This publication or transmittal should be done without
any comments, annotation, intercalation or any other kind of comment.
Article 16. Other responsibilities. The sanctions established in the present Law, do not
exclude the exercise of the administrative reasonable actions against the communication
medium or its responsible, in accordance with that established in the Law of Social
Responsiblility on Radio and TV, Law of Tele Communications and other laws ruling
the matter.
Article 17. Remission. The dispositions contained in the First Book of the Penal Code,
will be will apply on all the foreseen in the present law, and regarding the procedure the
norms of the Organic Process Penal Code will be applied, being this the ruling body in
penal procedure.
DEROGATIVE DISPOSITION
UNIQUE. All dispositions contemplated in other law which may collide with the
present law are revoked