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Con El Mazo Dando (English: Going at it with the Club) is a Venezuelan television programme. It is transmitted every Wednesdays at 7pm on Venezolana de Televisión and TVes. It is hosted by Diosdado Cabello. Its sister broadcast Nos Vemos en la Radio (English: See You On The Radio) is also broadcast on Radio Nacional de Venezuela.

History

On 17 February 2014, during the protests in Venezuela, Cabello warned in the program that "no opposition march will enter the Libertador Municipality, they will not pass!," adding that "it is a territory of peace" and ensuring that opposition protesters would not bring "violence" to the municipality.

In 2016, after the opposition handed over to the National Electoral Council the signatures collected to convene a recall referendum of President Nicolás Maduro, Cabello expressed on 4 May in the program that the directors of public bodies they signed were to leave.

In 2017, Cabello presented a video on his program in which the violinist and activist Wuilly Arteaga was heard supporting the government of Nicolás Maduro. Wuilly reported that he was forced to record clandestinely every day without being able to take off his clothes and that the statements were manipulated.

Golpe Azul

On 12 February 2015, Libertador Municipality Mayor Jorge Rodríguez during a special broadcast, denounced the participants of an alleged attempt planned by aviation general Oswaldo Hernández, who was convicted in May 2014 along with nine other military personnel for the crimes of rebellion and against military decorum.

National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello announced the arrests of eight people in Aragua by officials of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and the seizure of various equipment, including a computer with information on the tactical objectives of the coup group. He also showed maps allegedly located on the computer equipment of the protagonists of Golpe Azul, where buildings appeared in Caracas that were marked as tactical objectives such as the Miraflores Palace, the Public Ministry of Venezuela, the Caracas mayor's office, the Ministry of Defense headquarters, the Ministry of Interior, Justice and Peace building, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), the National Electoral Council (CNE), the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and offices of Telesur.

Foro Penal declared that the accused suspects were political prisoners and that they were convicted without evidence, and its director Alfredo Romero described the sentence as arbitrary.

Intimidation and incrimination

In this program, Cabello talks about the government's view on many political issues and presents accusations against the opposition. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed concerns about how the program has intimidated people that went to the IACHR denouncing the government. Some Venezuelan commentators have compared the use of illegally recorded private conversations on programs such as Cabello's to the practices in place in the East Germany as shown in the film The Life of Others.

Amnesty International has denounced the way in which Cabello has revealed details on the travel arrangements of two human rights defenders in his program and how he routinely shows state monitoring of people that may disagree with the government.

In 2022, Amnesty International released a report, along with the Venezuelan NGOs Center for Defenders and Justice (CDJ) and Foro Penal, identifying over 300 stigmatization events between January 2019 to June 2021. The report showed a coordination between stigmatization and repression against people critical or uncomfortable for the government, including Con el Mazo Dando as one of the stigmatization tools to arrest arbitrarily and one of the outlets where hate messages against Venezuelans were most frequently repeated before their arrests take place, along with the pro-government digital portals 'Misión Verdad' and 'Lechuguinos'.

Law against Hatred

Cabello has been accused by Venezuelan public of inciting hatred against opponents through the program, as he is frequently seen accusing and incriminating Venezuelan opposition activists and citizens, as well as international personalities, with alleged coup plans and/or terrorists against the government of Nicolás Maduro. Since the controversial Law against Hatred was sanctioned by the 2017 National Constituent Assembly, several sectors of Venezuelan society questioned whether such a law would be applied to Cabello for inciting hatred in its program. However, to date the defendants have been only opponents.

See also

• La Hojilla

References

1. (in Spanish) Programacion del Canal Informativo Archived 2011-12-20 at the Wayback Machine
2. ""Ninguna marcha opositora va a entrar al municipio Libertador ¡No van a pasar!"". Noticias24. 17 February 2014. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
3. Ferreira, Maria (2 May 2016). "MUD entregó al CNE un millón 850 mil firmas para activar el Revocatorio". El Universal. Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
4. "Cabello: Director de organismo que firmó, tendrá que irse". El Universal. 4 May 2016. Archived from the original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
5. "Wuilly Arteaga desmintió video publicado por Diosdado Cabello en VTV". El Impulso. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
6. Martín, Karina (12 January 2017). "Venezuela: condenan a militares y civiles por supuesto intento de golpe en 2015". PanAm Post. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
7. "Sentenciados 8 oficiales por "Operación Jericó"". Panorama. 7 May 2015. Archived from the original on 8 August 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
8. "Venezuela: Operación Jericó, el plan golpista que fue desmantelado". Telesur. 13 February 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2017 – via YouTube.
9. "Condenaron a militares y civiles involucrados en el "Golpe Azul"". El Nacional. 12 January 2017. Archived from the original on 24 July 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
10. IACHR Expresses Alarm over Intimidation in Venezuela directed against People Who Come before the Inter-American Human Rights System (OAS press release)
11. La Vida de los Otros (El Nacional) Archived 21 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
12. "Amnesty International report on TV program" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-21. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
13. "Cientos de venezolanos son detenidos después de ser señalados por medios chavistas". ABC (in Spanish). 2022-02-10. Retrieved 2022-02-26.
14. Web, El Nacional (1 March 2018). "Ismael García denunció a Diosdado Cabello ante la CIDH" (in Spanish). El Nacional. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
15. "Cabello vincula a periodista Damián Prat con plan "Guayanazo 2" · Espacio Público". espaciopublico.ong (in European Spanish). 28 August 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
16. "Un Mundo sin Mordaza se pronunció ante acusaciones de Con el mazo dando - Caraota Digital" (in European Spanish). Caraota Digital. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
17. Dia, Noticia al. "Cabello: "Esta noche Con el Mazo Dando desenmascaramos a los terroristas de la derecha" | noticiaaldia.com". noticiaaldia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 12 August 2018.
18. "Cabello incrimina a Hebert García de coordinar golpe de Estado" (in European Spanish). Analitica.com. 29 April 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
19. "Dra. Nelly Cuenca de Ramírez: "La Ley Contra el Odio es para perseguir la disidencia" - El Impulso" (in European Spanish). El Impulso. 30 November 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
20. "Tuiteros dicen que con "Ley del Odio" el chavismo legalizará veneno de 'Con el Mazo Dando' | El Cooperante" (in European Spanish). El Cooperante. 8 November 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
21. "Ley contra el Odio promulgada por el chavismo genera rechazo en redes sociales" (in Spanish). diariolasamericas.com. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
22. "Un Mundo sin Mordaza se pronunció ante acusaciones de Con el mazo dando" (in European Spanish). EntornoInteligente. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
23. ""Ley contra el odio" cobra sus primeras víctimas en Venezuela" (in European Spanish). PanAm Post. 6 December 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2018.

External links

• Official site

• Venezolana de Televisión original programming
• Venezuelan propaganda organizations
• Media of the Crisis in Venezuela
• Venezuelan television talk shows