By IAN JAMES – 39 minutes ago

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A top diplomat on Saturday defended Venezuela's investigation into a leading anti-government television station, rebuffing the concerns of U.N. and OAS officials that President Hugo Chavez's government is threatening free speech.

Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Roy Chaderton, accused the Globovision TV network of "media terrorism" and said that foreign observers passing judgment on Venezuela are beholden "to the interests of the private media."

Regulators are investigating Globovision for allegedly inciting "panic and anxiety" in its coverage of a minor earthquake on May 4. The station couldn't reach the head of Venezuela's seismological agency for comment after the quake, and criticized the government for its slow response.

Chavez has demanded sanctions against the network, calling station director Alberto Federico Ravell "a crazy man with a cannon."

It is the latest of many government complaints against the station, and Ravell has said regulators could fine Globovision or shut it down for 72 hours.

A joint statement by two officials who monitor freedom of speech — Frank La Rue of the United Nations and Catalina Botero of the OAS — decried authorities' strong statements against Globovision, warning they "generate an atmosphere of intimidation in which the right to freedom of expression is seriously limited."

They urged governments to guarantee that regulatory moves "do not imply acts of indirect censorship prompted by the media outlet's editorial stance."

Chavez accuses Globovision and other private networks of backing a short-lived coup against him in 2002, when they broadcast cartoons and movies instead of protests that aided his return to power. He has clashed with them repeatedly in recent years.

Globovision is now the only stridently anti-Chavez channel left on the open airwaves. Another anti-government channel, RCTV, was booted off the air in 2007 and moved to cable, and two other channels toned down their criticism. Venezuela still has a wide variety of newspapers and radio stations that are critical of Chavez.

Chaderton said the government has put a powerful group of private media "in its place," but has done so within the framework of the law.

"With what has happened here, in other countries, those stations would already have been taken off the air," he told state television, apparently referring to the 2002 coup.