Hugo Chávez has effectively closed down RCTV, a TV station that had been critical of him, by denying to renew their license. BoingBoing has a link to the last broadcast they made, where TV station personnel appeared with their mouths taped shut. As people protested the closing on the station, National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
As in other tyrannies, democracy is used as the excuse - Chávez claims to be democratizing the airwaves by turning the network’s signal over to public use. Public use meaning in this case people that will literally sing his praises.
Not only this clearly showcases the great dangers with state-issued permits (if they don’t like what someone is doing, they need just yank their license to legally do it), but is a textbook case of a government becoming more and more despotic. Like Jorge mentioned in one of our recent conversations, the one of the first things they do is silence the press.
Seems that people in Venezuela still cared about what the opposition had to say, and that made them dangerous.