Venezuela is just about the safest place for dissidents in Latin America, not the worst. For a start, consider "reporters without borders", they're a US-funded "freedom" lobby group. Very anti-communist.
Read their headlines about Colombia:
https://en.rsf.org/colombia.ht...
Now read their headlines for Venezuela:
https://en.rsf.org/venezuela.h...
The Colombian journalists problems are all murder, threats, intimidation by pro-government fascist death-squads.
The Venezuelan journalists problems are more along the lines of politics and bureaucratic red tape. And those are the WORST abuses that Reporters without Borders can highlight about Venezuela.
I don't know much about the threats on Colombia's journalism but I can tell you a few things about Venezuela. Trust me or call me a liar at your discretion:
* There are laws regarding "truthful and opportune information" and making "disquieting" and "destabilizing" speech a felony. Of course, no definitions for these fuzzy adjectives.
* Detention and/or beatings by military and govt-friendly gangs; it is not unusual for both to confiscate the memory cards and tapes. There's some mention of this in the RSF link you posted.
* One columnist was fined heavily for writing one of his pieces as a letter to Chavez's young daughter. Mind you, he didn't attack her in any way - he sympathized with the burden of being Chavez's daughter.
* The main opposition TV station, Globovisión, was accosted with fines (a recent amount was 10% of their gross revenue) for everything from donating airtime to broadcasting "disquieting" spots by NGOs. Eventually the station claimed being financially inviable and was sold to friendlier investors with a new editorial line, which has caused most reporters, interviewers and anchors to resign over the last year.
* In the months after the telecom regulator discretionarily revoked the broadcast license to another station, the gov't summoned the owners of two other stations with a milder but also critical stance. One became neutral-favorable, and the other came just short of a lap-dog.
* I hope you're aware about the tight controls on currency exchange. Well, every newspaper is facing a heavy shortage of currency for importing newsprint except state-sponsored and friendly ones. Maduro himself has yelled in public "not a single dollar more for the bourgeoisie!".
Now, ask yourself since Colombia is so much WORSE than Venezuela in protecting journalists, why do you never hear a peep in the media about how bad it is? Perhaps because there is no oil there?
*Ahem*
Oil - production: 588,000 bbl/d (93,500 m3/d) (2008 est.)
Oil - consumption: 267,000 bbl/d (42,400 m3/d) (2007 est.)
Oil - exports: 294,000 bbl/d (46,700 m3/d) (2008 est.)
Oil - imports: 12,480 bbl/d (1,984 m3/d) (2005)
Oil - proved reserves: 1,323,000,000 bbl (210,300,000 m3) (1 January 2008 est.)
Economy of Colombia
And oil shipments from Venezuela have been always on time, in spite of all the rhetoric.
