The Venezuelan government on Saturday ordered cable networks to stop broadcasting opposition TV station RCTV. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had already faced international criticism in 2007, for forcing the station off free-access television.

Chavez has long been accused by opposition leaders and press freedom observers of seeking to suppress private media in Venezuela, to snuff out critical reporting.

In 2007, Chavez prevented a renewal of RCTV’s broadcast license. He accused the broadcaster of supporting a coup that briefly ousted him.

An IPI statement at the time said: “RCTV is being targeted for its critical reporting of events in Venezuela. IPI regards the decision not to renew the station’s license to be a flagrant attempt to silence the station’s critical voice and in violation of everyone’s right ‘to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,’ as outlined in Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

RCTV was told by the government on Friday that its programming was illegal, Reuters reported. Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello said, at a news conference: “Those gentlemen that have businesses providing cable television … must comply with the law. They cannot have any station in their programming that does not obey this law.”

Under Chavez-backed broadcast regulations, TV stations must broadcast Chavez’s speeches – which can last for hours.

IPI Director David Dadge said: “RCTV has already been targeted in the past because of its critical reporting. Saturday’s decision to order cable networks to stop broadcasting it fits in with a pattern of free media oppression in Venezuela that shows no signs of ending.”

During a November 2009 press freedom mission to Venezuela, IPI noted with concern a continued deterioration of press freedom in Venezuela due to a climate of intimidation and hostility towards journalists and media outlets, as well as to a legal and judicial system that threatens the free practice of journalism.

IPI Executive Board Member Galina Sidorova, editor-in-chief of the Russian monthly investigative magazine Sovershenno Secretno and a Venezuela mission delegate, said in an IPI statement issued after the mission: “Access to information is essential to any functioning democracy and IPI urges the Venezuelan government to ensure that members of all media are allowed free and equal access to official information. We also call on the authorities to stop using legal and administrative measures in their apparent attempt to silence critical reporting.”

In recent years, Chavez has formed a number of state-funded television networks, to bolster pro-Government reporting.