enezuela: Opposition Leader Convicted for Criticizing Government (HRW take)

[naaman fletcher]

Convicting someone for expressing a critical opinion considered "false" violates international norms on freedom of expression, including article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights to which Venezuela is party. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has stated that: "One cannot legitimately rely on the right of a society to be honestly informed in order to put in place a regime of prior censorship for the alleged purpose of eliminating information deemed to be untrue in the eyes of the censor."

The Inter-American Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, approved by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2000, states that: "Prior conditioning of expressions, such as truthfulness, timeliness or impartiality is incompatible with the right to freedom of expression recognized in international instruments."

Similarly, in the "Statement Regarding Key Issues and Challenges in Freedom of Expression," the OAS special rapporteur on freedom of expression, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, and UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression held in February 2000 that, "Expression should not be criminalized unless it poses a clear risk of serious harm. . . . Examples of this are laws prohibiting the publication of false news and sedition laws. . . . These laws should be repealed."

Álvarez Paz was convicted by a criminal court in Caracas. Human Rights Watch documented Venezuela's lack of judicial independence in 2008 in "A Decade Under Chávez," a report that describes how Chávez and his supporters in the National Assembly carried out a political takeover of the Supreme Court in 2004. This takeover effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government. Since then, the court has repeatedly failed to fulfill its role as a check on arbitrary state action and a guardian of fundamental rights.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/07/14/venezuela-opposition-leader-convicted-criticizing-government

[joshcryer]

1. Time to throw HRW under the bus?

[naaman fletcher]

2. actually

HRW was already thrown under the bus, they once said something non-glowing about Cuba, so obviously they are fascist pigs.