Pressure is building on Venezuela’s government to fully investigate a rising number of deaths at an overcrowded prison, with human rights activists questioning authorities’ claim of a mass drug overdose by dozens of inmates who stormed an infirmary.
After days of conflicting reports from the government and family members, the depth of the tragedy at David Viloria prison in western Venezuela became clearer on Friday when authorities confirmed that 35 inmates had died and said 20 of an additional 100 still being treated for intoxication were in comas.
Caracas has said the troubles at the jail began on Monday with a prisoners’ hunger strike for better conditions. A group of violent inmates raided the prison infirmary and guzzled down a deadly mix of pure alcohol with drugs used to treat diabetes, epilepsy and high blood pressure, officials say.
Photo: AFP
William Ojeda of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela said after visiting the jail on Friday that many of the intoxicated inmates were drug users suffering from withdrawal symptoms due to the prison’s strict regimen of abstinence.
Prisoner rights activists have been skeptical of the official version. They say that as deplorable as Venezuela’s jails are, no inmates would voluntarily end their lives or poison themselves as a form of protest.
The lack of information and access to the prison has added to the mystery, with family members wondering whether loved ones could have been poisoned to restore order.
“Counting the deaths now requires going to the morgue” because government information is so incomplete, Andres Bello Catholic University human rights expert Ligia Bolivar said.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has yet to comment on the incident in frequent television appearances this week even as calls for a thorough investigation have come from Roman Catholic Church leaders in Venezuela and from the UN human rights agency.
On Thursday, police arrested the jail’s warden, Julio Cesar Perez, who is expected to be charged in connection with the deaths.
The government says the situation at the prison is under control after it called in the Venezuelan National Guard and transferred hundreds of inmates to other facilities. All prisoners’ rights are being respected, said Ojeda, who is president of a congressional committee that oversees the penitentiary system.
Venezuela’s prisons are among the world’s most violent.
Overall, the country’s 32 correction facilities are the fifth most-crowded in the world, housing almost three times their intended capacity, according to the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies. The prison population has doubled since 2008 as a result of rampant crime and stiffer mandatory sentences.
The David Viloria prison is named for a guard who was one of 58 people killed at the facility last year in the second-deadliest prison riot in the country’s history. The facility, previously called La Uribana, was built to hold no more than 850 inmates, but was believed to be holding about 3,000 when the latest disturbances broke out.
Last year, 506 inmates died in the country’s jails, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a non-governmental watchdog group.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was