Tag Archives: Amnesty International

Sep
10
2013
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ICYMI: Capriles appeals to OAS human rights commission

BBC News
September 9, 2013

69757497 69757496 ICYMI: Capriles appeals to OAS human rights commission

Courtesy of: AFP

The defeated Venezuelan presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles, has filed a request at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to declare the April election void.

Mr Capriles alleges there was widespread fraud in the vote narrowly won by acting president Nicolas Maduro.

Last month, the Venezuelan Supreme Court rejected a final plea by Mr Capriles to have the vote annulled.

Mr Capriles vowed to take his fight beyond Venezuela.

Mr Maduro has repeatedly rejected the opposition allegations of fraud.

‘Supranational power’

He also dismissed the Washington-based human rights organisation as lacking credibility.

He praised the late president, Hugo Chavez, for beginning proceedings to pull out from the body last year.

Venezuela is due to officially withdraw from the Commission on Tuesday.

Mr Maduro accused the OAS Human Rights Commission of hating and despising Latin America

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is part of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

“They believe they are a supranational power, a power above the legitimate governments of the continent. Their time is passed,” said Mr Maduro.

The Venezuelan government decision was criticised by Amnesty International as “a serious setback for the rights of Venezuelans.”

‘Reinstate rights’

Opposition politician Ramon Jose Medina filed the request, signed by Mr Capriles, at the OAS headquarters.

The Venezuelan government “must be forced to reinstate the rights they violated,” said Mr Medina.

“The elections, which were fraudulent, must be repeated and the electoral process must be free and fair.”

Mr Maduro won the 14 April vote by less than 1.5 percentage points – about 200,000 votes.

Mr Chavez died on 5 March after a long battle against cancer.

Before going to Cuba for a last round of treatment in December, he appointed Mr Maduro as his preferred successor.

To read this article at BBC News, please click here.

 
Dec
4
2012
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Outrage erupts as imprisoned judge details abuses

Maria Lourdes Afiuni Outrage erupts as imprisoned judge details abuses

Courtesy of: Maria Corina Machado / Globovisión

The case of a Venezuelan judge imprisoned almost three years ago has recently surged back into the headlines, drawing scrutiny from human rights advocates in and outside of Venezuela. Judge María Lourdes Afiuni was arrested in December 2009, after issuing a ruling that displeased President Hugo Chávez. At the time, the president went on national television to affirm that in earlier times, she would have been put before a firing squad. Soon after, she was arrested. Afiuni says that she was raped while in prison and later underwent an abortion behind bars after becoming pregnant. Controversy surrounding the case has outraged human rights activists who consider her jailing proof of the lack of judicial independence in Venezuela.

President Chávez sent his secret intelligence police to arrest Afiuni after she granted bail to businessman Eligio Cedeño, who had ties to the Venezuelan opposition and was accused of evading currency controls. Cedeño’s detention was declared arbitrary by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which decried Chávez for jailing an officer of the government without a fair trial. Despite the UN’s demands, Afiuni was held for more than a year in an overcrowded women’s prison near Caracas. She was incarcerated only cells away from more than 20 inmates whom the judge had sentenced for murder, drug smuggling and other serious charges. “I’m in this hell because I had the temerity to do my job as a judge in a way that didn’t please Chávez,” Afiuni told the New York Times from her prison cell.

Now that Afiuni has made the abuses she suffered known, the outrage has begun to grow. And now, nearly three years after her arrest, her trial has finally begun. Afiuni refused to enter the courtroom, however, claiming her rights had been violated and the case mishandled. However, due to a recent change in Venezuela’s penal code, the government has claimed the right to try her in absentia, setting a new precedent in Venezuela’s legal history. The particular change in the penal code was approved in June under the auspices of the controversial Enabling Act, which essentially gives President Chávez the right to rule Venezuela by edict.

Afiuni, who suffers from cancer, is now under strict house arrest in Caracas. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly called for Afiuni’s release, as has the American linguist Noam Chomsky, a commentator who often supports Chávez’s socialist goals. In an open letter to the Venezuelan president, Chomsky exhorted Chávez to “correct an injustice” by releasing Afiuni. Chomsky noted with outrage that the sick Afiuni “experienced grave abuses that led to a severe deterioration of her physical and psychological condition.” Unfortunately, these appeals have all been ignored by the Chávez administration.

This three year old case is another example of the government’s efforts to tighten its control over institutions like the judiciary. Earlier this year, former Venezuelan Supreme Court judge Eladio Aponte Aponte made startling claims about the Chávez administration’s control over the court system. Aponte has said Chávez and other government officials contacted judges with instructions on sensitive cases, while vice president Elías Jaua held weekly meetings with members of the judiciary. In fact, the World Justice Project released on Wednesday its 2012 Rule of Law Index Report, ranking Venezuela last in criminal justice. According to the report, “the government institutions are not transparent, and the criminal justice system is ineffective and subject to political influence.”

Examples like Afiuni’s are unfortunately common in Venezuela, but this one in particular has caught the eye of international activists, who will remain attentive as this unprecedented case proceeds. Afiuni’s next court hearing is scheduled for December 19.

 
Jul
6
2010
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Imprisoned Venezuelan journalist declares hunger strike

CNN is reporting that Leoncis Garcia, a Venezuelan journalist who has been held for two years without a trial reported that he has gone on a hunger strike, saying he wants the judge in his case to recuse himself. Leocenis Garcia made the announcement June 30 on Twitter. “I am starting an indefinite hunger strike until the Judge Jesus Jimenez of Court 20 stops working on my case,” Garcia said. It was not immediately known why Garcia wants the judge removed.

The journalist was arrested in May 2008 and charged with five offenses, including illegal possession of a firearm, resistance to authority and property damage. Garcia and his supporters say he was really arrested for publishing articles critical of Venezuela’s state-run petroleum industry.

Garcia said in August 2008 that he had been tortured by Venezuela’s secret police, published reports said. He is being held in the Tocuyito prison, and his father has expressed concerns that his son will be killed there. Human rights organizations have frequently accused leftist President Hugo Chavez of intimidating or punishing citizens based on their political beliefs.

In June, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights sent a letter to Venezuela’s foreign minister, criticizing the government on its record of freedom of expression.

At issue were three cases, including the conviction and sentencing the previous week of journalist Francisco “Pancho” Perez to nearly four years in prison and a fine of more than $18,000 for defamation of public officials.

The charges were brought because of a 2009 newspaper column published in the city of Carabobo that highlighted many of the mayor’s family members who were hired as contractors by the local government.

“The evident disproportion of the sentence handed down for the publication of a piece that was clearly in the public interest demonstrates the serious state of vulnerability in which freedom of expression in Venezuela finds itself,” the commission said in a statement.

In February, the commission issued a 319-page report accusing Venezuela of routinely violating human rights. The report said that a lack of independence by Venezuela’s judiciary and legislature in their dealings with Chavez often leads to the abuses.

“The report finds that not all individuals are ensured full enjoyment of their rights irrespective of their positions on government policies,” the human rights panel said. “The commission also finds that the punitive power of the state is being used to intimidate or punish people on account of their political opinions. The commission believes that conditions do not exist for human rights defenders and journalists to be able to freely carry out their work.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is an independent arm of the Organization of American States.

Chavez’s opponents say his government represses political opponents and the expression of free ideas by jailing critics on trumped-up charges or pulling licenses for TV and radio stations and shutting down newspapers. There are about 40 such political prisoners in Venezuelan jails, the critics say.

Most of those prisoners, Chavez critics say, are journalists and former military and police officials and others associated with a short-lived coup against Chavez in April 2002.

Some of the prisoners have been held for long periods without trials or during proceedings that have dragged on for months and even years, the critics say, and they say other prisoners have received harsh sentences under questionable charges. Many of the detainees are held at the secret police headquarters rather than a prison.

“Attacks on journalists were widespread,” said Amnesty International’s 2009 Report on Human Rights in Venezuela. “Human rights defenders continued to suffer harassment. Prison conditions provoked hunger strikes in facilities across the country.”

Human Rights Watch, an independent global organization, issued a 230-page report in 2008 that said Chavez has shown an “open disregard for the principle of separation of powers … specifically, the notion that an independent judiciary is indispensable for protecting fundamental rights.”

“In the absence of credible judicial oversight,” Human Rights Watch said, “the Chavez government has engaged in often discriminatory policies that have undercut journalists’ freedom of expression, workers’ freedom of association and civil society’s ability to promote human rights in Venezuela.”

The Chavez government has routinely denied any allegations of human rights abuses, saying that authorities arrest citizens only on suspicion of breaking the law.