The leader of Venezuela’s Roman Catholic Church on Monday accused the government of President Hugo Chavez of using judges and prosecutors to punish political adversaries.
Cardinal Jorge Urosa said authorities were unfairly prosecuting Chavez opponents for simply criticizing the government.
Urosa said an increasing number of Chavez’s foes are being “imprisoned for their opinion” and he urged Venezuelans to speak out against “any violation of human rights.”
Human rights groups already have expressed concerns that Chavez is becoming increasingly authoritarian and cracking down on dissent.
Chavez denies doing that. The president says he holds no sway over the justice system, but encourages authorities to uphold the law.
A Venezuelan lawmaker said on Monday he was being prosecuted for his outspoken criticism of Chavez and his family and appealed for international support. Wilmer Azuaje said charges that he struck a police official were politically motivated and that Chavez intended to keep him from running for re-election and to silence him.
Over the past week, prosecutors brought criminal charges against Guillermo Zuloaga, the majority shareholder of Venezuela’s lone anti-Chavez TV channel, and opposition politician Oswaldo Alvarez Paz for making remarks that authorities deemed misleading and offensive to the president. Both deny any wrongdoing and say they stand by their statements.
Zuloaga, owner of the TV channel Globovision, is facing charges for making what prosecutors consider false and “offensive” remarks about Chavez at an Inter American Press Association meeting in Aruba.
Alvarez Paz, a former state governor, has been charged with conspiracy, spreading false information and publicly inciting crime after commenting during a TV interview that Venezuela has turned into a haven for drug traffickers and backing allegations by a Spanish judge that Venezuela has cooperated with the Basque separatist group ETA and Colombian rebels — accusations Chavez denies.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
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