Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to all of the committee members.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this committee on international human rights.
In the summer of 1999, Venezuela approved a new constitution that contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues on human rights, but at the same time it has a rather weak institutional framework to ensure respect and realization of those rights. This design has been skilfully used by the government to progressively control almost all institutions. The lack of independence of the legislative, judicial, electoral, and so-called citizens' power from the executive branch does not only come from the appointment of members clearly associated with the ruling party, but also from direct interference with their functions.
Probably one of the most shocking examples was a statement made by the President of the Supreme Court in December 2009, when she expressed, “We cannot continue thinking of a revision of powers because that is a principle that weakens the state.”
Although human rights might be, and are, violated everywhere, a key element to redress victims in a democratic society is the presence of checks and balances. The division of powers does not exist in Venezuela, and that puts victims in a helpless position.
On the right to freedom of expression, the Venezuelan government would feel even more comfortable if it could control all our informal powers, such as the media. That explains the government's continuous attempts to reduce the influence of independent journalism. Some of the patterns in this area are: closure of media critical of the government; confiscation of equipment; withdrawal of broadcasting permissions to radio stations; short-term detention of journalism photographers with confiscation and destruction of materials.
There has also been penal prosecution of at least one journalist, who spent eight and a half months in prison and was sentenced to three and a half years in jail for alleged corruption charges in a case condemned by the inter-American system, as well as international NGOs.
Official pressure has been put on advertising companies to withdraw publicity from media critical to the government. In this case it is worth noting that the only case we have registered with proven evidence written on paper is a Canadian company. There have been disciplinary, administrative, and criminal procedures against media, media owners, and journalists. There have been attacks with fire weapons and explosives on the headquarters of media and the houses of journalists by civilian groups close to the government.
The right to freedom of expression also includes the right to seek information. However, journalists and media critical of the government are often not invited, or are prohibited access, to press briefings by public entities. Government spokespeople refuse to give statements to the media, and it is difficult to have access to information and statistics on public issues such as health, education, employment, and housing.
On the right to property, according to 0bservatorio de la Propiedad, there have been 762 expropriations between 2005 and 2009. This includes a wide range of areas such as farms/land, urban land, buildings/housing, universities, cultural centres, industry/factories, media, telecommunications, commerce, shopping centres, hotels, tourism, warehouses, wholesalers, and banks.
According to the law, expropriations can only be declared by courts, and compensation should be determined. However, in a large number of cases, expropriations have been declared by an administrative act, and compensation is unilaterally decided, and paid with extreme delay, if ever. Only expropriations involving multinational corporations have received compensation. There are no cases of expropriation against national owners. A recent trend shows that expropriation has been used as a sanction against alleged violations to administrative or economic regulations, in some cases based on political motivations.
On peaceful protest, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has noted that articles 357 and 360 of the penal code limit peaceful demonstration and constrain the right to strike in connection with labour demands.
Likewise, article 56 of the Organic Law on National Security provides for a prison sentence of 5 to 10 years for those deemed to promote conflict in the workplace of basic state industries.
According to information received by the commission, this article was invoked a minimum of 70 times during 2008. According to Provea and Espacio Publico, peaceful protest has almost doubled between 2006 and 2009 and so has repression. As of November 2009, Provea registered 2,240 persons who face criminal charges for participating in demonstrations. The majority are workers, trade union leaders, students, and social leaders. Emblematic cases include: 1,507 peasants under presentation to courts; steel workers from SIDOR under presentation to courts since 2006, even when the maximum length of time they have to be there is only two years; and workers of the metropolitan mayor's office.
It's also interesting to note that half of the workers and trade union leaders facing criminal charges for demonstrations are “Chavistas”, that is, sympathizers or supporters of President Chávez. Six persons have been killed in demonstrations in one year. Workers' rights, social services, and rights to education are the most common demands of demonstrators.
With regard to political persecution, some 40 people remain in prison on political grounds, and many others are facing trial or have been sentenced. Although government spokespersons state there are no political prisoners, but politicians in prison, almost all cases present similar patterns: the length of trials is extremely long; most appeals and other recourses are systematically rejected; criminal charges are inflated as a way to keep the prosecuted in prison; corruption charges are often manipulated for political purposes; and evidence favouring defendants is frequently disregarded. In sum, the right to a fair trial is seriously threatened.
In addition, there is a mechanism used in recent years to limit the opportunities of opposition candidates to run for public office, which is the restriction through administrative resolutions. According to the law, such restrictions, inhabilitaciones, as they are called, can only be applied as an accessory penalty in criminal trials after final sentence has been decided.
Some 400 people had their political rights restricted by administrative measures prior to regional elections in November 2008. In the last two weeks, at least eight--it was seven when I sent this paper, but it was eight last night--candidates to the national assembly were subject to such restrictions for congressional elections due to take place in September 2010.
With regard to human rights defenders, they are frequently subject to harassment, disqualification, threats, and criminalization, either in public statements by governmental spokespersons or through direct action. At least five defenders or groups of defenders have been granted protection measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
In an attempt to restrict international support to local NGOs, including human rights organizations, a draft law has been introduced in the national assembly to regulate international cooperation. The language of the draft is extremely vague, opening the door for discretionary interpretation. Although the law has not been passed yet, some of its provisions have already been applied to human rights organizations.
As part of investigations around the coup attempt of April 2002, a document issued by the national assembly mentioned a number of entities allegedly cooperating “with the objectives of the Empire”. These include the Inter-American Press Association, Human Rights Watch, right-wing parties in the European Parliament and the Mercosur Parliament, the U.S. Treasury Department, the Christian Democrat International and Christian Democratic Organization of America, the so-called anti-drug czar of the United States, the FBI, the CIA, Mossad and their agents in various intelligence organizations around the world, the Rendon Group, the television networks CNN, ABC News, Televisa, Univision, FOX, CBS, TV Azteca, TV Globo, the PRISA Group, and print media controlled by the elite in countries subordinate to United States interests, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the International Republican Institute.
Human rights, as described above, face serious obstacles due to the lack of independence among powers. The stability of judges has always been an issue in Venezuela, as noted in Provea's first annual report in 1989. For some years, there was a trend toward increasing the number of career judges. This trend reverted seriously after 1999 when the constitutional assembly decided to declare a judicial emergency. Since then, the number of career judges has dropped to 10%. Lack of stability, together with discretionary hirings of lawyers to become part of the judicial system, has become a key factor in understanding the problems affecting the administration of justice.
A recent study shows that the jurisdiction in charge of ruling on cases against the administration—the Contencioso administrativo—avoids making decisions on the substance of the matter. Its rulings tend to be limited to formalities. It is worth mentioning that in October 2003, three of the five magistrates of the First Court of Administrative Disputes were dismissed for alleged inexcusable miscarriage of justice in a case against the central administration.
It is easy to understand why incoming magistrates avoid dealing with the substantive aspects of controversies against the administration, because these three magistrates were dismissed without any administrative or disciplinary procedure. The case was presented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights before the Inter-American Court, which ruled in favour of the magistrates. However, the Supreme Court decided that the Inter-American Court ruling was unenforceable. This was the first case where the Supreme Court openly disregarded an Inter-American sentence.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot end this presentation without special mention of the case of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a tenured judge since 2006. On December 10, 2009, after several judges and prosecutors passed on hearing the following case, she conducted a hearing in the case against Eligio Cedeño, who had been in preventive detention without trial for more than two years. During the hearing, the defence reiterated the petition and Judge Afiuni decided to substitute in place of preventive detention of Cedeño a conditional release pending trial, and imposed on him other restrictions.
The judge based her decision on the Venezuelan criminal code and the recommendations made in a report issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention with regard to Cedeño. Less than an hour after Judge Afiuni took her decision, a group of policemen from the Department of Intelligence and Prevention Services arrested Judge Afiuni in her court headquarters without a warrant, as well as two officers of justice.
On December 11, President Chávez accused Judge Afiuni of being a bandit who deserved 30 years in prison. This took place during a simultaneous national TV and radio broadcast. The general prosecutor attended the event. On the same day, the general prosecutor's office presented Judge Afiuni before a criminal tribunal on charges of corruption, abuse of authority, and for evasion and racketeering, and set the place of detention for Judge Afiuni as the National Institute of Feminine Orientation, INOF.
In the INOF prison there are 24 women inmates whom Judge Afiuni has sentenced to prison during her work, including the inmate next door. Since entering the INOF, Afiuni has been subjected to several death threats and attempts to kill her by highly dangerous prisoners, some of whom are condemned for multiple homicides and drug trafficking. Judge Afiuni will complete six months in that prison next June 10. International human rights bodies have made different appeals on her behalf, without success.
The administration of justice has passed from ignoring decisions of international human rights bodies to declaring them unenforceable and finally to putting in jail a judge who dared to enforce a UN decision.
Merci beaucoup.
