CARACAS, August 6, 2009 (AFP) - Venezuela's congress on Thursday announced it would not debate a planned "media crimes" bill that could have jailed anybody contributing to news reports deemed unfavorable to the government, effectively burying the controversial text.

The proposed bill was dismissed following fierce criticism inside Venezuela and abroad from media and rights groups.

"The law proposed by the public ministry's attorneys does not have a consensus and is not a bill that is in our legislative agenda," the head of the lower house, Cilia Flores, said.

She added that many of its provisions were already contained in the penal code, making the text redundant.

Detractors had seen the planned measure as an attempt by President Hugo Chavez to censor non-state media. They accuse Chavez of increasingly autocratic tendencies.

The text, which this week was studied by the congress's media committee, called for up to four years in jail for anybody disseminating "false or manipulative" information, or stories considered against the national interest or the public's "morality" or "mental health."

Chavez's ruling Socialist Party, which easily dominates the legislature, had said the new media law would help "regularize everything that hurts public peace and stability."

But the daily El Nacional reported, without citing sources, that Chavez held an emergency meeting on Monday that decided the proposed law "should disappear because of public opinion."

Chavez's government is still accused of heavy-handed tactics against media opposing it.

Venezuelan authorities last week closed down 32 radio stations and two television outlets accused of "abuse" of free speech. Nearly 300 other independent broadcasters also risk having their licenses revoked.

Chavez on Wednesday defended the closures, saying "we are democratizing the communication media and ensuring true freedom of expression."

He has argued that the independent media, much of it opposed to Chavez's left-wing administration, was concentrated in the hands of a few.