UN calls for change to Venezuala's publishing ban

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s investigator on freedom of expression said a Venezuelan court’s ban on publishing information and photos about violence was a form of prior censorship and should be changed.

Frank La Rue, along with Catalina Botero of the Organisation of American States, spoke after the newspaper El Nacional published photos of bodies accumulating at a local mortuary.

They said the court order “imposes limits that are so vague and imprecise that they prevent the written press from publishing any information that could upset or bother the government”.