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Venezuela Rigging the Rule of Law Judicial Independence Under Siege in Venezuela The Venezuelan government is undermining the independence of the country’s judiciary ahead of a presidential recall referendum that may ultimately be decided in the courts. President Chávez’s governing coalition has begun implementing a new court-packing law that will strip the Supreme Court of its autonomy. This 24-page report examines how the new law will make judges more vulnerable to political persecution and help ensure that legal controversies surrounding the recall referendum are resolved in Chávez’s favor. HRW Index No.: B1603 June 17, 2004 Also available in 
Download PDF, 271 KB, 26 pgs Purchase online Caught In The Crossfire: Freedom of Expression in Venezuela The Venezuelan government is not doing enough to protect journalists from violence, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch also urged the government to protect freedom of expression by ending its ongoing investigation of the country’s private television networks, and dramatically revising its proposed law to regulate the contents of radio and television broadcasts. The launch of Human Rights Watch’s report coincides with renewed public debate in Venezuela over draft legislation that the government of President Hugo Chávez has introduced on the “social responsibility of radio and television.” The draft legislation would impose stringent and detailed controls over radio and television broadcasts, greatly limiting what could be aired during normal viewing hours. Under the guise of protecting children from crude language, sexual situations and violence, it would subject adults to restrictive and puritanical viewing standards. The 26-page report describes how journalists face physical violence and threats, often by fervent civilian supporters of President Hugo Chávez. Noting the justice system’s failure to identify and punish those responsible for the attacks, the report recommends that the attorney general set up a special panel to investigate the problem. HRW Index No.: B1503 May 21, 2003 Also available in
Download PDF Purchase online Venezuela: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers There are indications of under-18s in government armed forces but numbers are believed to be very small. June 12, 2001 Venezuela: Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Key developments since March 1999: The Mine Ban Treaty entered into force for Venezuela on 1 October 1999. Venezuela has not submitted its Article 7 report, due by 29 March 2000. Venezuela signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified on 14 April 1999. According to a Foreign Ministry official, when Venezuela ratifies an international treaty, it immediately becomes national law, and therefore Venezuela considers that there is no need for an implementation law.170 Venezuela has not yet submitted its Article 7 transparency report, due by 29 March 2000. Venezuela voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 54/54B in support of the Mine Ban Treaty in December 1999, as it had done on similar resolutions in 1997 and 1998. August 1, 2000 Punishment Before Trial Prison Conditions in Venezuela Overcrowded, understaffed, physically deteriorated, and rife with weapons, drugs, and gangs, Venezuela’s prisons have a deservedly poor reputation. Although their notoriety largely springs from a few brutal outbursts of violence—including the 1994 massacre of more than one hundred inmates at Sabaneta prison and the 1996 killing of twenty-five inmates at La Planta prison—these are simply the most newsworthy among countless violent incidents. The prisons’ appalling violence, moreover, is one symptom of a host of other chronic problems. The overcrowding is particularly abusive. Some facilities contain several times the number of prisoners they were built to house, with inmates routinely sleeping two or three to a bed, or even on passageway floors. And severely compounding the crisis is the fact that nearly three-quarters of Venezuelan prisoners have not been convicted of any crime. Human Rights Watch/Americas urges the Venezuelan authorities to bring its treatment of prisoners into line with international human rights standards. Besides describing the prisons’ conditions, this report includes detailed recommendations for remedying them. HRW Index No.: 2017 March 1, 1997 Purchase online Prison Massacre in Maracaibo On January 3, 1994, a massacre in a Venezuelan prison left more than one hundred inmates dead and scores injured. While security personnel stood by, a group of prisoners set fire to a prison building, then shot and stabbed prisoners who tried to escape the inferno. HRW maintains that what happened was avoidable and even foreseeable, for numerous earlier reports described the horrendous state of Venezuelan prisons, but thus far the government's determination to reform its prison system has been absent. HRW Index No.: B601 February 1, 1994 Human Rights in Venezuela Highlighting some of the human rights abuses of the previous five years, this report examines the structures of the judicial system and archaic statutes that permit the denial of due process; these include aspects of the military justice system as well as inefficiency in the civilian courts and a lack of transparency in internal police disciplinary procedures. It also discusses cases and situations that illustrate some of the most serious kinds of abuses that have occurred in this period, particularly those where judicial conduct has been especially questionable, as in the investigation into the 1988 massacre of fourteen fishermen at El Amparo. HRW Index No.: 1-56432-114-2 October 1, 1993 Purchase online
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