27 75. Starting in 2002, officials of the Venezuelan State, including President Chávez, made different statements indicating that the concessions of some private social communication media in Venezuela would not be renewed. These statements included the following: a) Statement made by President Chávez of June 9, 2002, during his program “Aló Presidente,” in which he stated: “Even when they are privately owned, television and radio stations are only operating under a concession; the State is the owner […]. And the State authorizes a group of businessmen to use them as operators, so that they can project images over this devices; but the State reserves the right to grant that permission. It’s as if someone wanted to use a State water pipeline to provide water to a village, and the State grants him permission. […] However, let’s suppose that […] we give him permission to use the pipeline [and] he begins to poison the water. […] immediately the permission would be revoked, and he would also be thrown in jail. He is poisoning the people. Exactly the same is happening, it’s the same logic, the same explanation, with a television channel”;108 b) Declaration of President Chávez of January 12, 2003, in his program “Aló Presidente,” in which he stated: “The same goes for these television network and radio station owners; they, too, have a concession from the State, but they don’t own the signal. The signal belongs to the State. I want to make that very clear; I want it clearly understood because if the owners of these television networks and radio stations continue their foolish efforts to destabilize our country, to give subversion a foothold, because it is subversion, let there be no doubt, […] In this case it is fascist subversion, encouraged by the media, by those gentlemen I have mentioned and others I won’t mention. So, I am warning Venezuela. I have ordered a review the whole legal procedure under which these gentlemen were granted a concession. We are reviewing them and if they do not return to normality in the use of the concession, if they continue using the concession to try and disrupt the country, or overthrow the government, then I would be compelled to revoke their concession to operate television networks”;109 c) Declaration of President Chávez of November 9, 2003, in his program “Aló Presidente,” in which he stated: “I’m not going to let you do this again, […] you – Globovisión, Televén, Venevisión and RCTV – tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. [Minister] Jesse Chacón, I gave you an order; you must have a team of analysts and observers, 24 hours a day, watching all the channels simultaneously. And we must be very clear, I am very clear that there is a line they must not cross, and they should know, it is the limit established by law. The moment they cross the legal limit they will inevitably be closed down to keep peace in Venezuela, to preserve order in Venezuela,”110 and d) On May 9, 2004, President Chávez stated in his program “Aló Presidente”: “those who are violating the right to information, the right to freedom of expression, are the owners of the private media, with some exceptions, but above all, the major television networks, Venevisión, Globovisión, RCTV […]; the owners of these media are committed to subversion, terrorism, and destabilization, and, at this point in time, I have no doubt that – the owners of these media – we can well declare them enemies of the people of Venezuela.”111 Transcript of the program “Aló Presidente” No. 107 of June 9, 2002, p. 19, Available at: http:// www.aloPresident.gob.ve/materia_alo/25/1663/?desc=alo_President_107_desde_el_chivo_zulia_venezuela.pdf 108 Transcript of the program “Aló Presidente” No. 135 of January 12, 2003, Year 16 #008-23/04/07, Legal deposit PP-88-153, pp. 6 and 7. 110 Transcript of the program “Aló Presidente” No. 171 of November 9, 2003, p. 79, Available at: http://www.aloPresident.gob.ve/materia_alo/25/1551/?desc=alo_President_171.pdf. 111 Case of Ríos et al. v. Venezuela Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs, Judgment of January 28,2009, Series C No. 194, paras. 127 and 128. Also, transcript of the program “Aló Presidente” of May 9, 2004. 109