27 November 2019|Mohamed Elmaazi
While news outlets which have reported critically of the ongoing coup in Boliva have been targeted by the coup government and its supporters, the BBC, which is seen as more sympathetic to coup, remains unscathed for now.
On 22 November 2019, teleSUR reported that the new minister of Communications in Bolivia, had revoked teleSUR Spanish’s licence to broadcast in the country.
The Bolivian government first cited “technical problems” but then cited “grid reorganisation” in a letter seen by The Interregnum.
teleSUR‘s reporting in Bolivia has been adversarial towards and critical of the coup. It has regularly given voice to people who supported the now overthrown government and to the peasantry and indigenous population in Bolivia who report increasing amounts of racist violence against them from the state and from supporters of the coup regime.
The Interregnum contacted BBC to determine whether their licence had also been revoked.
A BBC spokesperson said:
“We are monitoring the situation but currently the BBC’s availability and newsgathering in Bolivia is unchanged.”
The Interregnum understands from multiple Bolivian journalists, including one which reports from Bolivia on behalf of teleSUR, that the BBC does not refer to the transition from power of the Morales government as a coup. Nor is the BBC, according to these sources, report in the same manner as teleSUR or independent outlets such as The Grayzone in respect of the anti-indigenous, racist, right-wing, far-right, and fascist elements supporting the coup.