Human rights in Venezuela

The human rights situation in Venezuela are from the so-called. "Bolivarian" Constitution of 1999 established. Various organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , believe that attacks, harassment and intimidation of those who criticize government are common.

Violation of personal rights (fundamental rights)

crime

The murder rate in Venezuela has risen from 19 murders per 100,000 population in 1999 to over 60 murders per 100,000 population. This makes Venezuela's murder rate the highest in South America.

Politically Motivated Persecution

The Tascón list

The Tascón List is a list of people who have signed a petition for the referendum to impeach Hugo Chavez. The MP Luis Tacón ( PSUV ) published this list online (according to him, to have the signatures verified). The government then asked the signatories to delete their signature. The Labor Minister also told the press that officials who signed would have to be fired.

Attacks

On June 18, 2009, Chavez supporters, led by Mayor Alirio Mendoza, attacked the governor's house in Miranda state, where the new opposition governor, Henrique Capriles , is based. They smeared swastikas on the walls. Capriles' grandparents were Jews.

Espionage and defamation

The state media have often made illegally tapped phone calls made by political opponents available to the public, particularly in Mario Silva's program La Hojilla on Venezolana de Televisión . On one of these programs, the journalist presented alleged evidence to the state broadcast, which was supposed to show that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles had been caught engaging in homosexual acts in public and had used his power as mayor to block prosecution.

Prisoners

The Usón case

The government has denied the existence of political prisoners in Venezuela. In 2004, two soldiers who were held in a punishment cell died. Six others were injured. A journalist alleged that the soldiers were attacked with a flame thrower. A senior officer, General Usón, explained in an interview how flamethrowers work and said that if a flamethrower had been used and it was not an accident, the situation would be serious and an investigation would be urgent. He was arrested shortly afterwards while collecting signatures for a referendum against Chavez. Usón was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison for defaming the armed forces. In 2007 he was released early for good conduct. He had previously refused a pardon from Chavez.

The Afiuni case

María Afiuni was arrested on December 10, 2009, and charged with helping banker Eligio Cedeño escape Venezuela. She had released Eligio Cedeño after serving in prison longer than the law allowed without a judgment. Hugo Chavez had therefore accused the judge of corruption and demanded at least thirty years imprisonment for her. Afiuni was arrested immediately. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers all called for their immediate release. She was initially detained, but was placed under house arrest for health reasons. The European Union has sharply criticized the Venezuelan government over the Afiuni case.

Women's rights

According to the constitution, women have the same rights as men. Nonetheless, violence against women is a serious problem in Venezuela. In the first 10 months of 2011, around 501 women were killed by domestic violence in Venezuela.

Liberty rights

Referenda, privacy and political discrimination

In 2004 a referendum was held to impeach Hugo Chávez. A government representative, Tascón, published the names and identity numbers of all the people who signed the petition for the referendum on the Internet. Afterwards, various ministers said that all officials who signed were traitors and should be fired. Chavez has also urged people to 'revise' their signature. The data of all the undersigned could be bought a little later on DVDs from street vendors. The opposition criticized this as a violation of voting secrecy and as a form of political discrimination. In 2005, Chavez declared that the list had to be buried because it had already served its purpose.

Freedom of the press

The historian Michael Zeuske wrote that Venezuela has been the freest country in the world since 1999.

Venezuela was ranked 117th in the Press Freedom Index in 2011. In 2010, the EU passed a resolution condemning the tendency towards authoritarianism in the Venezuelan government and the closure of several broadcasters.

Globovisión is a station critical of the government that can be received in Caracas and outside by people who have cable or internet access. In June 2012 Globovisión was sentenced to pay $ 2.1 million for "improperly broadcasting violence in Venezuelan prisons". Globovisión reported on riots in El Rodeo , in which 20 people were killed.

Diosdado Cabello has brought charges against the newspaper El Nacional and the magazine Tal Cuál for referring to publications by the Spanish newspaper ABC, according to which Cabello had contacts with a drug cartel run by the Venezuelan military. The chairmen of El Nacional and Tal Cuál are currently not allowed to leave Venezuela. Teodoro Petkoff, head of Tal Cuál, was unable to personally receive his award at the Ortega-y-Gasset award ceremony in Spain.

Cadenas

Cadenas are government programs that must be broadcast by every radio and television station. Since Hugo Chávez came to power, the number and airtime of these cadenas have increased. Government critics claim that this is a violation of the freedom of the press. In the first 10 years of the Chavez government, the Cadenas together lasted almost 3000 hours.

Minorities

About 2% of the population are indigenous people. The 1999 constitution guarantees the rights of these indigenous people and recognizes their languages as official languages alongside Spanish. The Chavez government had long since promised to return traditional areas to the indigenous people. Some Indian groups have complained that only a fraction of the promised regions have been allocated to them.

Anti-Semitic incidents

In 2009 a synagogue in Caracas was vandalized and swastikas were sprayed on the walls. Eight police officers were among the eleven arrested. The President of the Jewish Congregations Ben Shimol then accused the Chavez government of promoting and legitimizing anti-Semitism through its anti-Israeli propaganda . In 2010, Chavez met with representatives of the country's Jewish communities. Thereafter, a temporary decrease in anti-Semitic rhetoric was noted. In 2011, a presenter from the national main radio station NVR recommended that her listeners read the anti-Semitic pamphlet Protocols of the Elders of Zion . The Association of Jewish Congregations of Venezuela and the Anti Defamation League strongly condemned this and accused the government of not doing enough against anti-Semitic attacks within its sphere of influence.

Justice and the prison system

The human rights organization Provea has criticized the fact that one of the MPs elected for the ruling PSUV party , Róger Cordero Lara , was one of the military who was involved in the Cantaura massacre in 1982. Provea and other organizations also claim that Ramón Rodríguez Chacín , another military man and current PSUV candidate for gubernatorial elections in December 2012, was a contributor to the El Amparo massacre.

Separation of powers

The chairman of the High Court, Luisa Estela Morales, appointed by the Chavez government, declared in 2009 that the separation of powers would weaken the state and that the constitution would therefore have to be revised.

Prisons

Procedure stagnation

Three fifths of the prisoners have not been convicted. The number of inmates, which was 22,000 in 1999, exceeded 50,000 in 2011.

Dead and injured

Hundreds of people are murdered in Venezuelan prisons every year. From 1999 to 2011, around 5,000 people were killed in prison violence. In 2011, according to Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones, at least 560 people lost their lives in violence in prisons and another 1,457 were injured. In Tocuyito prison alone, around 51 inmates were killed during this period.

Number of murders in Venezuelan prisons since 1999 (according to Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones)

In the first half of 2012 alone, over 300 inmates lost their lives in acts of violence in prisons.

Human rights organizations and institutions

The best - known non-governmental organizations that deal with human rights in Venezuela include Provea and Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones.

Two representatives of the human rights group Human Rights Watch were expelled from the country in 2008 when they published a report critical of the government.

Ban on foreign funding for NGOs

In 2010, the National Assembly passed the Law for the Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Independence . This law prohibits any financial support from abroad for political movements, parties and people engaged in political activities. Thus, Venezuela has a stricter law than that adopted by Putin in 2012. Agents Act .

Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Chavez Government

Hugo Chavez announced in 2012 that Venezuela would leave the Inter-American Court of Human Rights . The reason for this was the reports of this organization on the human rights situation in Venezuela.