Jim Wyss has a shocking story in the Miami Herald about the sprawling state-sponsored human trafficking ring known as Barrio Adentro, and the Cuban doctors now getting stranded in Bogota as they try to flee indentured servitude in Venezuela. The stories the Cuban doctors tell tell read like the stories of Eritrean refugees trying to get…
This shaky footage, clearly the work of a trembling hand, is good enough to make out the basics: In broad daylight, in an alley behind some buildings, three or four lifeless bodies lay scattered across the ground. An SUV arrives and several police officers get out of the car. One of them scouts the area,…
In a recent meeting between political parties and the CNE, it was agreed that Tamara Adrián could run for Congress as part of the female cuota of the MUD. If this comes to pass, and I say If, considering it was not written down anywhere as far as I could see, this would be a huge…
The UN Human Rights Commission came out with a report (in draft form, but since everyone is tweeting about it, I assume it’s the definitive version) on Venezuela. You may recall that a few days ago, there was drama in Geneva as the Venezuelan government was dragged kicking and screaming to the UN to defend…
Between August and October of last year, eight Twitter users were detained by the Venezuelan intelligence service (SEBIN). To this day, five remain jailed in the Helicoide. Four have plead guilty to minor charges in exchange for lesser sentences and were pressured to change their defense lawyers (from NGO Foro Penal) for public defenders. But how…
The Venezuelan State is once again under review this week as the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee will monitor the country’s performance on civil and political rights, based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The B.R. of V.’s delegation is lead by Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who will be joined by…
On May 28th Venezuela celebrated the International Menstrual Hygiene Day. On that day, we embraced: …the opportunity to create awareness of the right of women and girls to hygienically manage their menstruation – in privacy, safety and with dignity – Because, good menstrual hygiene management (MHM) plays a key role in enabling women and girls to reach their…
Last February 27th, local Chavista activist Alcedo Mora allegedly left his home in the city of Mérida. He went to his workplace at the Merida State Government and met with his boss, Luis Martínez Rico, who’s the state’s Lieutenant-Governor. Later that day, he texted a few friends, telling them that SEBIN intelligence agents were looking for him, and that…
The core issue of human rights in Venezuela, specially economic, social and cultural ones, will be reviewed in Geneva in the next two days, as the B.R. of V. will present how it’s applying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As expected, there are conflicting views on how Venezuela is doing on…
Melanio Escobar is an honest man, a good father, and a stubborn human rights activist. We had a chat last year in the midst of the student protests, due to his viral coverage of the imprisonment of thousands of protesters. I was impressed by this well spoken ex-punk rocker and journalist with a name that would…
There are already plenty of reports recording what happened in the wave of protests last year, but a new one from the Human Rights Center of the Andres Bello Catholic University (CDH-UCAB) puts the magnifying glass on the State’s many strategies to cover up its abuses. Under the title “Que no quede rastro” (Leave no Trace Behind),…
In case you missed it, there was a hostage crisis last week at the Bolivarian National Police HQ in Caracas. A group of inmates took two officers as a form of protest for the overcrowding and the endless delays in their judicial process. One of the inmates died during the riot. The standoff ended after some…
You probably know about the strange case of the fake child kidnapping that has served as an excuse for Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Diaz to propose to regulate social networks. Not that she has not tried to do so before… Regardless of the strange circumstances that motivated her proposal, or the context in which her proposal was…
The statements by Freddy Bernal, saying that gay people can be cops as long as they don’t say so, are apalling, infuriating and shameful. Furthermore, to see a news anchor sit quitely while such bigotry is being spewed out in his studio is even worse. In his little speech, Bernal tries (and fails) to explain why the Police Force cannot…
(I met Lissette González back in college, when we were both interns at the UCAB’s Institute for Social and Economic Research. We were never close – she, the hipster Sociologist; me, the neoliberal economist – but I liked her. I had not seen nor heard from her in many years, but I got hold of…
Caracas Chronicles 