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MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, April 3rd 2025 - 15:39 UTC

Tag: human rights

  • Saturday, June 23rd 2018 - 09:05 UTC

    Hundreds of arbitrary killings by Venezuela security forces, claims UN

    These officers may have killed more than 500 people since July 2015 as a way to showcase crime-reduction results

    Venezuelan security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings under the guise of fighting crime, the UN's human rights body says. In the report it cites “shocking”accounts of young men being killed during operations, often in poor districts, over the past three years.

  • Friday, June 15th 2018 - 16:21 UTC

    Nicaragua crisis: Many seek to flee the country

    As the crackdown progresses, the barrage of passport applications has increased markedly in the last two weeks.

    As the crisis worsens in Nicaragua, pressure on the part of society that demands the resignation of President Daniel Ortega remains. This generates that, in many cities like Masaya, the streets are blocked with more than 200 barricades while their neighbors organize to guarantee security and collect food for the protesters who are entrenched, resisting the paramilitary siege against the city. However, there has been an overflow of passport applications in recent weeks.

  • Thursday, June 7th 2018 - 23:10 UTC

    The Uruguayan Foreign Ministry describes the number of immigrants arriving in the country as “never seen before”

    “The Secretariat of the Refugee Commission is completely overwhelmed,” said the Minister of Human Rights, while “acts of discrimination and xenophobia in Uruguay” are emerging.

    Immigration to Uruguay, Argentina and Chile has exploded exponentially in recent years. It is receiving an “unprecedented” daily requests for refuge in the southern country, according to the Director of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Uruguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dianela Pi, who explained to MercoPress that “There are acts of discrimination and xenophobia that are emerging in Uruguay as never before” as a result of the migratory phenomenon. This wave comes mostly from citizens of Venezuelan origin.

  • Saturday, June 2nd 2018 - 08:09 UTC

    Nicaragua's husband-wife team ready to fall: end of the road for the Ortegas

    The protests by now have left 90 people dead and almost a thousand injured. The great majority of victims are students, and others shot by the police

    By Gwynne Dyer (*) - From the Ceausescus in Romania (overthrown and shot 1989) to the Mugabes (removed in a non-violent military coup 2017), husband-and-wife teams running authoritarian regimes seem to have a particularly high casualty rate. And now it may be the turn of the Nicaraguan team: President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo.

  • Saturday, May 26th 2018 - 18:23 UTC

    'Storms' and arrests among Venezuelan Armed Forces; more tortures and political prisoners

    President Maduro ordered the military high command that the Armed Forces must sign a document of “loyalty” to the regime.

    After the presidential election in Venezuela on May 20, in which President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected, a wave of arrests has been reported among Venezuelan military in several parts of the country. As well as releases and new arrests of civilians and soldiers for political reasons.

  • Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:42 UTC

    Nicaraguan truce on the cliff after claims police attacked and shot students

    In Managua, protesters carried Nicaraguan flags, banged pots and blew whistles to call on Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, to resign. (EFE/Bienvenido Velasco)

    Nicaraguans were back on the streets in their thousands on Sunday to protest what they called a government breach of a two-day truce agreed during Church-mediated peace talks. Students at a university in northeastern Managua claim police attacked them during a demonstration outside the campus on Saturday night in which four students were shot and injured.

  • Thursday, May 17th 2018 - 08:20 UTC

    Argentine Prosecution orders the arrest of 26 officers for alleged torture against conscripts in the Falklands

    Federal prosecutor Marcelo Rapoport working with the advice from the Crimes against Humanity prosecution special office, asked for the arrest of the 26 officers

    The Federal Prosecution Office from Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego has called for the arrest of 26 officers allegedly involved in torture practices against conscripts during the Falklands conflict in 1982. The case has been ongoing for over a decade but it remains at snail pace.

  • Monday, May 14th 2018 - 08:34 UTC

    Nicarguan army sides with protests, calls for an end to violence

    The protests have expanded to at least eight departments, including clashes over the weekend between protesters, police and pro-government civilian groups.

    Nicaragua's military called for a halt to violence that has rocked the country during weeks of protests and a deadly crackdown by police and supporters of President Daniel Ortega's government. In a statement late Saturday, the army also expressed solidarity with families of those who have died — more than 60, according to a human rights group.

  • Monday, April 23rd 2018 - 09:49 UTC

    Nicaragua's Ortega cancels social security reform following riots and death of 26 killed by police

    Human rights groups said at least 26 people were killed in several days of clashes. Dozens of shops in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua were looted

    Nicaragua's president on Sunday withdrew changes to the social security system that had triggered several days of deadly protests and looting. President Daniel Ortega said in a message to the nation late Sunday that the National Social Security Institute's board of directors had canceled the changes that were implemented April 16.

  • Thursday, March 8th 2018 - 18:51 UTC

    Venezuela: close to fraudulent elections

    Despite the accusations made by the international community, the government is heading towards an election unilaterally called.

    Venezuela's National Assembly, with opposition majority, denounced on Wednesday the “undue” use of electoral material, noting that official papers that belongs to the National Electoral Council (CNE) was found in gambling centers to print bet vouchers and presented its final report about the investigation into the case of the ex-rebel agent, Oscar Pérez.