University students shout slogans against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a protest in Caracas on Jan. 28. They protested all week over the shutting down of RCTV. (Fernando Llano/Associated Press)

The Venezuelan government's impasse with its media continues with protests over the closing of cable stations that refused to carry President Hugo Chavez's speeches.

RCTV, one of the stations closed, says rules that require stations to give up air time for government announcements and speeches are interfering with the democratic rights of Venezuelans.

"They said we haven't respected the rules they created especially for us," Elias Bitar, an RCTV spokesman, said in an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show on Wednesday.

"This is an attack against freedom of speech, not just against us, but against the people."

RCTV has been in trouble with the Chavez regime since 2002, when it backed a coup against him.

It was stripped of its radio broadcast licence in 2007, but continued to broadcast via cable and satellite. But last week, government pressured cable carriers to stop carrying that signal.

Bitar said Venezuela has a lot of problems with issues including health care, the electrical system and widespread violence, which it has made public in its news reports. He maintains the station is being punished for exposing those problems.

Problems 'with every government'

"We have a history of more than 50 years, with every government we have had problems," he said. "It is the first time the government did what they did — punish us by shutting us down."

Reporters without Borders, the Paris-based press freedom group, agrees Venezuala's freedom of speech is being compromised.

There have been violent demonstrations by students in Caracas over the shutting down of media outlets, said group spokesman Benoit Hervieu.

A law that forces every domestic broadcast outlet — radio or TV — to broadcast all of Chavez's speeches is being misused, he said.

The law was created to allow the government air time for public announcements, but is being twisted to allow a government takeover for the airwaves, sometimes for hours at a time, he added.

The shutdown of RCTV was allegedly because it violated this law, Hervieu said. Other channels that have capitulated to government demands have been allowed to resume broadcasting.

"It is a pretext to punish the editorial policies of RCTV," Hervieu said. "In which democratic country, and Venezuala is allegedly democratic, do you inflict your speech on all channels?"

Move defended

But Gregory Wilpert, New York-based author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, defended the move against RCTV.

"The media in the past have overstepped the bounds of journalism and have become political actors. I think everybody agrees on that, " he said. "That's why these new laws were introduced, to limit that kind of abuse of public airwaves."

RCTV is using the freedom of speech issue to blur the lines over its own conduct, he said. Wilpert said all the private media in Venezuela are dominated by opposition points of view, and Chavez had to move against them to get representation on national airwaves.

Bitar insists his station is lobbying for democracy and press freedom.

"It is a blackout of community and information whenever the president tries to talk to the people," because every station must carry nothing but that speech, he said.

He said there are likely to be more protests, but that any violence is the result of the government moving too harshly against protesters. One student was reported killed in protests last week.

"They think to think different, to protest, is violence. No, that is an exercise of rights," Bitar said.