Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday that his country would withdraw from the top human rights body in the Western Hemisphere, calling it a “mafia” and its leader “excrement” after a report criticizing his record.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released a scathing 300-page report on Wednesday that says freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest had been curtailed.
The group, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), said “political intolerance” prevails in Venezuela.
In a conference with foreign journalists, Chavez read out loud a letter written by Commission head Santiago Canton during a short-lived coup against him in 2002 and which seemed to recognize the legitimacy of the officials who replaced him.
“Santiago Canton, executive excrement, pure excrement,” Chavez said.
“We will prepare to denounce the agreement by which Venezuela is a member of this nefarious Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and we will leave it. What for? It’s not worth it, it’s a mafia there,” he said.
The report praised Chavez’s government for eradicating illiteracy, reducing poverty and increasing the access of poorer people to healthcare. However, it said social and economic advances were no justification for sacrificing fundamental civil rights.
“The commission finds that the state’s punitive power is being used to intimidate or punish people on account of their political opinions,” it said. “Venezuela lacks the conditions necessary for human rights defenders and journalists to carry out their work freely.”
The report said there was a troubling trend of harassment, violence and judicial action to deter and criminalise protests, leaving Venezuelans cowed. It detailed cases of dozens of judges who were sacked or sidelined for rulings the government did not like.
“The lack of judicial independence and autonomy vis-a-vis political power is one of the weakest points in Venezuelan democracy,” it said.
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