Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Caracas (Agenzia Fides) - “We reject any intent on the part of authorities to criminalize those who exercise the civil right to demonstrate, established in Article 68 of the National Constitution.” This is what an official statement issued September 14 by the Justice and Peace Commission following the arrest of several demonstrators involved in anti-government protests, which took place in August. The text, entitled, “For respect of human rights,” is signed by the President of the Justice and Peace Commission and Vice-President of the Venezuelan Bishops' Conference (CEV), Bishop Roberto Luckert Leon.
The Bishops say they are concerned by the fact that “in recent court processes for those arrested for protests or public demonstrations, the State has returned to the practice of preemptive detainment.” This kind of action “takes us back to times we believed we had happily overcome with the adoption of the Organic Penal Process Code,” in 1998, which favored a step towards “innocent until proven guilty.”
Today, however, according to the Justice and Peace Commission, “people who exercise the right to hold assembly and to express their own opinions” are subjected to a judicial process used “for severe crimes such as rebellion, illegal action, instigation of violence, and delinquency,” and imprisoned in ordinary jails, “where there is no distinction between the people awaiting hearing and those convicted already” and there is a lack of “guarantee for respect for the physical well-being and the life of the detained.”
“We denounce any sort of attack on the dignity of the human person - the Bishops say - and against the honorable work of organizations that for years have worked in defense of human rights,” now victims of “defamation and both oral and written attacks.”
Those who signed the document ask the Venezuelan Government to respect “the standards established for the protection of human rights in the Constitution of the Republic,” thus, fulfilling their “mission to safeguard the fundamental principle of the independence of public powers.” The citizens have been asked to “report to competent authorities any kind of abnormality, recalling that the path to reinforcing democracy is through the government institutions.” In addition, it is fundamental that they “work for peace, reconciliation, respect for human dignity, mutual understanding, getting rid of violence and hate, making room for peaceful coexistence,” the Bishops of the Justice and Peace Commission of Venezuela concluded. (GT) (Agenzia Fides 16/9/2009)
