UN criticizes as “devastating” Venezuela’s decision to pull out from human rights court
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Thursday that Venezuela's pullout of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR Court) would be “devastating” for the international organization. Spokesperson Rupert Colville said the move “will be not good for Venezuela either.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused the IACHR Court this week of supporting terrorism for its ruling in favour of Raúl Díaz, charged with planting bombs in the Embassy of Spain and the consulate of Colombia in Caracas, and he contended that his country would leave the organization “out of dignity.”
“It is very sad seeing a country leaving the Court,” Colville lamented, adding that the organization “plays a key role in the transition to democracy.”
The IACHR has come under intense criticism from some Latin American leaders that increasingly describe it as a pawn of Washington. Allies of Venezuela including Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua have accused the IACHR of improperly weighing in on disputes still being heard in domestic courts and working to undermine their governments.
“Venezuela is withdrawing from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, out of dignity, and we accuse them before the world of being unfit to call themselves a human rights group,” Chavez said during a military ceremony.
IAHRC ruled Venezuela had violated the rights of Raul Diaz arguing jail conditions were deplorable. Diaz was sentenced to nine years in prison but fled to the United States after winning a conditional release.
Earlier this year, Chavez tasked a council of state made up of allies to study whether or not Venezuela should remain in the group.
The Costa Rica-based tribunal, part of the Washington-based Organization of American States, or OAS, has heard a series of cases accusing the Chavez government of authoritarianism and rights abuses during his 13-year rule.
Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, say the OAS body provides crucial protections for citizens in countries with weak judiciaries or a history of authoritarian leaders.
Opposition politicians and activists say Chavez has routinely stamped on rights and harassed opponents during an increasingly autocratic rule.
Chavez, who is leading in polls ahead of a re-election bid on October 7, routinely scoffs at those accusations.
The court's sister organization, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has also been criticized for meddling in the affairs of its member nations. Brazil last year upbraided the group for urging a halt to the construction of a hydroelectric dam along a tributary to the Amazon River.
The OAS in June postponed the thorny issue of reforming the human rights commission for six months, an issue which has the organization divided.
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Part of the responsibility for Venezuela's criminal state being vested in Chávez lies with Venezuelan voters who return this criminal to power, but having been in power since 1998, so many criteria of Venezuelan society have deteriorated: corruption now worst in Western Hemisphere next to Haiti, violence and culture of violence is extremely poor - and transgressions against human rights are growing. Leaving the IACHR only confirms that Chávez' abusive regime prefers to avoid the glare of international human rights protectors.
Amnesty International Venezuela:
www.amnesty.org/en/region/venezuela
Human Rights Watch Venezuela:
www.hrw.org/americas/venezuela/
Corruption Perception Index 2011:
cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
Global Peace Index:
www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/
Wiki on homicides 2010:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#2010s
Has the USA been condenmed? No. Of course it is a US pawn and the last thing the US cares about is human rights.
Whataboutism Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Whataboutism: www.economist.com/node/10598774
Well done Venezuela.
The boy doesn´t like criticism, he can´t stand his regime´s brutality towards his opposition being exposed. Just like in Cuba, the opposition leaders have become traitors, puppets of the evil empire.
@5 “Human rights” in Venezuela. Virtually non-existent. Attacks on journalists and human rights defenders. Lack of press freedom. Poor administration of “justice” influenced by politicos and the military. Agrarian violence, including murder. Police violence and extrajudicial killings. Venezuela today sounds like nazi Germany. What will it be like next year?
@12 Where does he get this concept of “dignity”? He's a ranter. A Goebbels. A Hitler. A bully.
Basics of criminal and civil law...
One: You can not judge yourself.
Second: You have the right not to incriminate yourself.
Chavez knows what he is doing.
The Fourth Horseman of the apocalypse (the rider of the green horse) is coming for him and Venezuala.
Do you know who else has recently ceased all collaboration with the OHCHR? Little Israel! Israel's friends are the free press, the UN, and human rights NGOs, but of course that won't prevent the likes of Western supremacists like to from excusing away any and all of its policies.
WTF has “Little Isreal” got to do with Chávez's human rights record?
Or for that matter what has “Western supremacy” got to do with Chávez's human rights record?
And Chávez's Human Rights record is pretty dodgy, so I guess it doesn't really surprise anyone that he leaves the IACHR.
Don't know everything that's going on here, in this Venezuelan case, but there are questions that should be asked: this man is a terrorist, yet he's been given shelter by the US. Is the UN also criticizing the US's human rights record for allowing a terrorist to walk freely on its streets? Let's not forget that the Afghanistan war was justified on the basis that that country's rulers, the Taliban, allegedly refused to hand over Bin Laden to the US. And the US's also given asylum to Luis Posada Carriles, the worst terrorist of the Western Hemisphere. Has the US been criticized over this? If the UN is focusing all its criticisms on Chávez, then it deserves the reaction it's gotten.
It isn't just venezuela either, LatAm and caribbean makes up all but one of the bottom 23 countries in the list, the other being south africa.
I guess it's what happens if you take greasiest and most unpleasant of the dregs of spanish society and breed them in an isolated environment.
A campaign of mass sterilisation would probably do wonders for them all
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