US sanctions against Venezuela have intensified under the Trump administration. It is the largest financial contributor to the Latin American broadcaster TeleSUR, which funds The Empire Files with Abby Martin. Because of the sanctions The Empire Files has been forced to shut down production completely. The Empire Files is temporarily appealing for donations on a one-time and monthly basis to continue production in the midst of US attacks on the TeleSUR Network.

AS A RESULT of US sanctions against Venezuela, The Empire Files has been forced to completely shut down operations.

The documentary series, which airs on TeleSUR throughout Latin America and on Free Speech TV and The Real News Network in the United States, has been funded through a contract with the Latin American broadcaster TeleSUR, of which Venezuela is the largest funder. It has released over 100 documentaries, interviews and on-the-ground exposés from battlefields in Palestine, Venezuela and beyond.

As a result of financial attacks by the US government on the primary source of TeleSUR’s funding, production was halted before the completion of The Empire Files Season Two.

Season Three, contracted for 26 episodes, was scheduled to begin on July 1. But with the US government blocking wire transfers that originate in Venezuela, the ability to receive funding has not been possible.

Throughout 2017 and 2018 The Empire Files was produced while, behind the scenes, funding was often sporadic and often delayed. At times The Empire Files was forced to fund production costs itself.

However with US attacks and sanctions on Venezuela intensifying, funding has been cut off completely Contract TeleSUR journalists elsewhere, including at  The Empire Files, have had funding blocked by the US government for over six month. Even wire transfers not originating in Venezuela, but ally countries which also fund TeleSUR, have been severed.

There appears to be no solution, and no end in sight, to this ongoing financial attack.

The Empire Files officially halted all production on May 27, but was forced to cut all staff prior to that. But the program has delayed making an official announcement in the hope that the wall put in place by the Trump Administration could be overcome.

The US State Department has been involved in regime-change projects in Venezuela since the election of the late President Hugo Chavez -first expressed by a violent coup in 2002. During that coup, Venezuela’s state media and pro-government media were shut-down by the US-backed junta. Yet economic sanctions on Venezuela were not implemented until the Obama Administration, in 2015.

The Trump Administration has taken these sanctions to new heights. The most recent escalation came on May 21, 2018, the day after President Maduro democratically won reelection—apparently to punish the Venezuelan people for electing the 'wrong' candidate.

Today, the US sanctions on Venezuela are the worst sanctions on any country in the region since those against Nicaragua in the 1980s -a time when the Reagan Administration was waging a full-blown, bloody war against the Nicaraguan people. Similarly it is Venezuela’s poor and working class who are, by design, suffering most from the sanctions today.

These economic attacks cannot be viewed on their own, but part-in-parcel of a regime-change operation. This is just one front in the US strategy, the sanctions are coupled with violent US-backed coup attempts in Venezuela, including the August 4 assassination attempt on President Maduro.

TeleSUR has always been included as a target for its association with the government. A thwarted US-backed coup plot in 2015 included plans to bomb the TeleSUR news building in Caracas. In 2017, a TeleSUR news team was ambushed by US-backed opposition forces and nearly lynched—one TeleSUR reporter was shot in the back during the assault.

Likewise, Abby Martin and The Empire Files producer Mike Prysner were the target of pro-coup politicians and journalists based in Caracas and Miami, leading to hundreds of death threats and causing them to flee Venezuela where they were conducting on-the-ground reporting.

In addition, TeleSUR—along with the other main left-wing news source on Venezuela, Venezuela Analysis—were recently targets of online censorship. Already hit with “warnings” and “sensitive content” bans on YouTube and Twitter, their pages were recently deleted (although later reinstated) by Facebook. This was the second time the TeleSUR English page was removed without warning or explanation by Facebook. Facebook is currently collaborating with the Atlantic Council—stacked with CIA agents, Iraq war architects, Big Oil and the weapons industry—to decide which media outlets “sow discord.”

The entire Empire Files team—which has included a variety of dedicated videographers, editors, animators, graphic designers, composers, audio engineers, writers, researchers, interns and more—has spent nearly three years doing dedicated, rigorous, and sometimes life-threatening work to deliver a high-quality, politically important show once a week. The Empire Files has been a regular feature of this blog.

But The Empire Files will continue as long as it might be possible. Abby says that the show will resume production for TeleSUR as soon as blocks on funding are lifted, or circumvented—however, this could mean  in six months, a year, or never.

In the meantime, The Empire Files is appealing to its supporters for donations on a one-time basis or as monthly sustainers to restart production, rehire staff and release new episodes for as long as funding permits.

In the immediate term, the documentary series  hopes to raise enough funds to complete post-production on its most recent, unreleased footage. This includes never-before-seen footage of the Great March of Return, including new instances of brutality by Israeli forces against unarmed protesters at the border fence, interviews with the family of slain medic Razan Al-Najar and wounded medical workers, and much more.

If The Empire Files raise enough money to cover the cost of releasing all of this important content over a span of several episodes, it can then dedicate funds to new filming and production that is not subject to attacks by the Pentagon. This includes documentaries on everything from Trump’s war machine, to the hidden repression of environmental activists.

Click here for a one time donation on Go Fund Me.
Click here to become a monthly sustainer on Patreon






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