CNN's Venezuela presence is being quashed after the cable network's coverage reportedly angered the country's socialist government.
Venezuela's National Telecommunications Commission, CONATEL, pulled CNN's Spanish-language channel off the airwaves and is seeking to shut down its online service, but the network could still be seen on YouTube there, Reuters reporters.
The news agency said that CNN en Espanol had been critical of President Nicolas Maduro's government, and a recent report about passports allegedly being sold illegally out of the country's embassy in Iraq angered local officials, the wire service said.
The CNN investigation claimed there were "serious irregularities in the issuing of Venezuelan passports and visas, including allegations that passports were given to people with ties to terrorism," according to NBC News. Misael Lopez, the former legal adviser to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq, made the allegations against Venezuela to CNN.
"Managers are coordinating with all internet providers, using the available technology, to make the respective blocks," Andres Mendez, head of state communications regulator Conatel, told state media, according to Reuters.
"The procedure is done in light of the content that the mentioned news station has systematically been broadcasting, which presents a clear aggression against the Venezuelan homeland," CONATEL said in a statement cited by NBC.
CONATEL ordered its cable companies to shut down CNN en Espanol's signal immediately, calling the action a preventative measure, according to CNN.
The commission's director, Andres Eloy Mendez, said Thursday morning on state-run VTV that CNN en Espanol's reports "defame and distort the truth" and "threaten the peace and democratic stability of our Venezuelan nation, as they generate a climate of intolerance."
"Venezuela's decision to take CNN en Espanol off the air is yet another serious blow to freedom of expression in the country and clearly indicates that the government of President Maduro is willing to widen its censorship power to restrict any critical coverage," Carlos Lauría, senior program director for the Americas for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, according to NBC News.
NBC News reported that, as Venezuela was banning CNN, President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio were meeting with Lilian Trintori, the wife of Leopoldo Lopez, a jailed Venezuelan opposition leader who has been imprisoned since 2014 under Maduro.
Trump then issued a Twitter post asking for Lopez's release:
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