Venezuela is a beacon of freedom and egalitarian ideal. But they are under no obligation to suffer the utterances of the enemies of the Bolivarian revolution.

If your speech is positive and encouraging of the people's progress, you have nothing to fear. But if you slander the state, if you attempt to sow discontent towards socialism and the great people creating an ideal system, the state has no obligation to tolerate you.

Does this radio show not count as "freedom"?

Would you ever send Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck to jail like Victor Hugo?

I forgot the tag!

Unfortunately they are more a beacon for record inflation, consumer shortages and rampant crime and murder atm.

Venezuela is a joke. Don't defend it. You're making DU look bad.

Murder With Impunity/Journalists Mowed Down in Honduras (post coup US ally)
Rick Kearns
8/9/12

Journalists are being murdered and threatened at an alarming rate in Honduras, including indigenous broadcasters according to recent testimony before members of the United States Congress.

In the last three years 24 journalists have been murdered, the offices of many broadcasters have been shut down or raided by official forces and some media outlets have been bombed or burned by as yet unidentified persons in the struggling Central American country.

"And this is the most terrible thing about these deaths: in Honduras today, a person who works in front of a microphone (or a computer or a camera) only has to publish or disseminate some news that negatively affects the interests of a powerful person with money and influence in the community…for the life of that reporter to be endangered," said Rev. Ismael Moreno Coto, one of the activists who testified on July 25th in Washington, D.C. at the World Threats to Media Freedom Hearing at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC), a human rights organization comprised of federal legislators from both parties.

While August 1's session at the TLHRC included testimony on repression of media in several countries, the information on the heavily indigenous Honduras came from three presenters.

More:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/murder-with-impunity/journalists-mowed-down-in-honduras-128152

On edit, adding:

CPJ testifies on challenges to democracy in the Americas
By Carlos Lauría/Senior Americas Program Coordinator

Carlos Lauría, CPJ's Americas senior program coordinator, provided testimony before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of US House of Representatives on Tuesday. Lauría emphasized that violence and government harassment are the main emerging trends that illustrate the major challenges facing the press in the Western hemisphere.

A transcript of the full testimony can be found here.
September 11, 2013 12:52 PM ET

Venezuelan government as outlined in the OP, but your post has the opposite effect, merely highlighting the severe dangers that journalists face throughout the region.

What, precisely, is your point?

As long as some U.S. ally somewhere is being an oppressive shit stain, Venezuela has no obligation to not oppress free speech?

I'm sorry, but I don't by that. Regardless of a nation's place on the "With Us or Against Us" scale, restrictions on free speech are evil. Honduras, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, or here in the good ol' USA - it does not matter. Free speech and the free press must not be obstructed if we are to consider ourselves civilized.