Venezuelan cable providers, responding to government orders, stopped showing RCTV Internacional on Sunday. The station is critical of Chavez, who pushed its parent RCTV off free-access television in 2007.
Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami said late on Monday that 15-year-old Josino Jose Carrillo, a pro-Chavez high school student, was killed while participating in a demonstration in the Andean city of Merida.
“Unfortunately several minutes ago a group of students that were protesting peacefully were attacked in a cowardly fashion, and this lamentable incident resulted in the assassination of a 15-year-old youth,” said El Aissami in televised comments.
He said nine police officers from the state of Merida were wounded in the student demonstrations, two of them with firearms.
Police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Caracas and other cities protesting the new suspension of RCTV, along with some other small stations, a move that was criticized by media freedom groups and the U.S. government.
“Any time the government shuts down an independent network, that is an area of concern,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
