Editor's Note: It is now a well-known fact that Hugo Chavez has been nine-times elected via general elections and referenda by a comfortable majority of the Venezuelan people. The opposition to the Chavez government is comprised of a dwindling minority who were heavily invested in the corrupt regimes preceding Chavez for 40 years. This minority has been using methods from the undemocratic to outright violence and terrorism to bring down this government for years. While they appear to be losing their war on democracy in Venezuela, they continue to battle the government in the private media and on the internet. In our judgement, VHeadline has done an excellent job, with objective critiques of the peoples' government and with expose' of the nefarious behavior of the opposition. In 2002, the day before the 2002 coup, Roy Carson, Editor of VHeadline wrote:
"With new-found democracy and legitimacy now fighting for its survival on political barricades in Caracas, the question must surely be asked if truth and legitimacy is to be allowed to win the day ... or, if Venezuela will be plunged into yet another four decades of corruption and misery, where more than 80% of its population has already been subjugated by political manipulators and corrupt cliques, whose percentage is in the lower single digits, but appears to have all the mouth in the current media war against the democratically-elected government of President Hugo Chavez Frias."
Carson continued that day:
"The question is not, or should not, be focused on the personality of Chavez Frias, who may alternately be liked or disliked according to the flavor of the day. The greater truth is that the President has been elected, by a democratic majority, to serve the Venezuelan people, and he has the clear backing of a majority in the democratically-elected National Assembly (AN), which was itself constituted by a reform Constitutional Assembly, which was itself ratified by an overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan people in a National Referendum."
Aleksander Boyd lives in London. He serves as one example of the unscrupulous opposition and their attempts to use the internet to malign President Chavez and those who want to see democracy and the rule of law prevail in Venezuela. This self-styled, obsessive firebrand runs a vanity-site called VCrisis, on which he misrepresents and maligns the current Venezuelan government.
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| Aleksander Boyd |
"The Venezuelan day to day is a huge soap opera, never a dull moment. The antics of the revolutionary regime offer abundant opportunities for entertainment although much of what is happening is also very tragic."
Today, in the article below, VHeadline published an article by Carlos Herrera in which he makes a public call to the British Intelligence Services to investigate Boyd's antics in the U.K. and suggests that the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.K. pressure British authorities "to act in strict compliance with the law". Boyd has responded to his critics by launching a media campaign on his vanity site to malign VHeadline and others. For some readers, all this may seem to amount to little more than a schoolyard fight between two internet sites. We view it as an important example of how the internet is being used to attack the most authentic example of real democracy in the western hemisphere, arguably in the world. - Les Blough, Editor
VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: On the BBC web site it was reported today that:
This individual wrote to people in the UK pretending to be the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in Thailand, informing them that their missing relatives involved in the Asian tsunami tragedy, had been confirmed as dead. As a result, Pierson was charged with:
...causing a public nuisance and a further charge under Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act...
This is interesting for me and my colleagues in Venezuela since there have been many complaints and articles written on the terrorist activity of A. Boyd via his hate-Venezuela website based in London.
Refer to the recent VHeadline articles: Can we really accept this sort of terrorism on the Internet? and Hitting a raw nerve when the right questions are asked... and which could be interpreted both as not only being a call to threaten violence against a sovereign state and a democratically elected government in the case of Venezuela, but also, and more importantly, as being malicious communications, as outlined in the UK’s Malicious Communications Act.
Here are the relevant sections of this law for VHeadline readers, and the British Authorities:
| Malicious Communications Act 1988 section 1
(This is the wording of this section as amended by Section 43 Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. It applies to offences committed from the 11th May 2001 onwards) (1) Any person who sends to another person
Telecommunications Act 1984, section 43 (1) A person who
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Being a responsible and law abiding citizen, I make a public call to the British Intelligence Services, Special Branch Police and the Home Office (Internal Affairs) for investigation of Boyd’s activities in London ... in the light of the arrest of this Pierson character and the charges brought of malicious communications.
- If the British authorities do not act speedily, I make a personal call to Venezuelan Ambassador in London, Alfredo Toro Hardy to take this matter further and pressure the British authorities to act, in strict compliance with the law.
To assist British authorities in this matter, the two addresses I have for Aleksander Boyd are: CENSORED!
I hope to see results soon in this pending investigation.
Carlos Herrera
Carlos.Herrera@VHeadline.com
Aleksander Boyd and VCrisis
http://www.whois.sc/vcrisis.com
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/
main?q=&url=vcrisis.com
Original Source of Herrera's article: http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=24153