The Americas
Prisoners' rights in Venezuela
Silenced suffering
Sep 3rd 2010, 17:00 by P.G. | CARACAS
FOUR days ago, Franklin Brito died from a hunger strike he had staged to protest the Venezuelan government granting squatters the right to occupy his land. Now, thousands of prisoners in four jails in the country are resorting to the same tactic. Just as Mr Brito expired on Monday, 900 prisoners in the state of Yaracuy declared hunger strikes over alleged improprieties in their trials. Another 30 in Tocuyito, near the Caribbean coast, did the same and called for solidarity after they said they were beaten by guards. Some 850 inmates in the Vista Hermosa prison, in southern Venezuela, joined on yesterday. And over 3,000 prisoners at Tocorón, west of the capital, Caracas, have declared hunger strikes to complain of overcrowding and lack of health care.
Such protests are nothing new in Venezuela: in May 6,000 inmates staged hunger strikes over the slow progress of their cases in the courts. The country’s jails are some of the most violent and overcrowded in the Americas. According to the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory (OPV), an advocacy group, more than 43,000 prisoners are crammed into jails built for 15,000. Four-fifths of them have not even been sentenced. The OPV also reports that 221 prisoners were murdered in the first six months of this year alone.
Conditions have always been grim, thanks to guards' poor training and corruption, judicial inefficiency and the ease of trafficking guns and weapons through jails. But they have deteriorated further during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. Crime has soared over the last decade, creating more cases, and the government has hijacked the justice system to harass its opponents, leaving fewer resources to deal with suspects of common crimes. The government says it is making an effort to improve conditions. But has built just one new jail to relieve the overcrowding, and it accuses the OPV of subversion.
In Cuba, political prisoners on hunger strike created enough international pressure to win the release of 52 detainees in July. But prisoners’ rights are a losing issue in Venezuela. Paradoxically, the wave of violence has created demands for ever-harsher punishments.
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It's both Re-Assuring & Re-Freshing to Know & Note, that the Folks @ "The Economist" are concerned with the Plight of the Prisoners!
Peace, Love & Respect.
History is a subject students should be taught properly. Only the German school of Caracas teaches properly the horrors ocurred in Europe. Unfortunately public schools do not. Cuba,Bolivia,Ecuador,Nicaragua are 60 years after mirror reflections on the XXI century.
September 26, elections for congress are scheduled. Hopefully thereafter we migh see some light.
Meanwhile we shall continue living while we can.
Sorry - I meant write: not a pretty sight.
I wholeheartedly agree with valwayne when it comes to Venezuela's tropical dictator. But, what I find even more disheartening is to see that the opposition hasn't shown effective leadership nor a coherent plan to counter the destruction caused by this Venezuela Attila. To make matters worse, when upcoming opposition leaders start getting attention from the public the become targets of the wrath and jealousy of Chavez. He immediately instructs his puppet "Contralor" Closdosvaldo Russian to find ways to prevent any of the up-and-coming opposition political leaders from running for public offices. Mr Russian has the power to, at his sole discretion, veto anyone from running for any public office without the need to press charges or present a case to a judge. Mr Russian's only job has been to veto potential opponents to the red machine while government corruption scandals pop up everyday while Mr Russian looks the other way. Not a pretty site, miserable outlook for Venezuela.
This article just shows the total failure of most of the international community to bring attention to, and/or, do anything about the destruction of democracy in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has slowly but surely destroyed all democratic institutions in the nation as he made himself the undisputed dictator. One of the wealthiest nations of South America has been turned into an absolute dictatorship that is kept afloat economically only by exporting oil as Hugo Chavez destroys the rest of its economy! It is truly sad!