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María Lourdes Afiuni
María Lourdes Afiuni Mora (born 8 June 1963) is a Venezuelan judge. She was head of the 31st Control Court of Caracas before she was arrested in 2009 on charges of corruption after ordering the conditional release on bail of businessman Eligio Cedeño, who then fled the country. She was moved to house arrest in Caracas in February 2011, and granted parole in June 2013, but she is still barred from practicing law, leaving the country, or using her bank account or social networks. Human rights groups accused the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez of creating a climate of fear that threatens the independence of the judiciary. ''Reuters'' said Afiuni is "considered by opponents and jurists as one of the most emblematic political prisoners" in Venezuela, because Chávez called for her to be imprisoned. In March 2019, she was sentenced to 5 years in prison. She was sentenced for corruption, although no alleged amounts involved were specified; the actual sentence was for "spiritual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eligio Cedeño
Eligio Cedeño (born 1 December 1964; Caracas, Venezuela) is a , president of CEDEL Group, Venezuela. He is in the United States, having been released on bail from charges in Venezuela of circumventing government currency rules to gain U.S. dollars. Over the next year prosecutors repeatedly failed to turn up for court dates, leading to accusations that the case was being strung out due to a lack of evidence. The United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in September 2009 declared Cedeño's detention arbitrary partly as a result, and judge María Lourdes Afiuni would release him on this basis. Due to her decision to free Cedeño, Judge Afiuni was herself jailed. Background Cedeño was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 1 December 1964. He attended the University Simon Rodríguez in Caracas and earned a degree in Business Administration. Cedeño began work at an early age as a bank apprentice and was president of Bolivar-BanPro Financial Group, S.A. in Venezuela. He had previo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Group On Arbitrary Detention
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) is a body of independent human rights experts that investigate cases of arbitrary arrest and detention. Arbitrary arrest and detention is the imprisonment or detainment of an individual, by a State, without respect for due process. These actions may be in violation of international human rights law. The Working Group was established by resolution in 1991 by the former UN Commission on Human Rights. It is one of the thematic special procedures overseen by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and is therefore a subsidiary body of the UN. Mandate and composition The Working Group is mandated to receive and verify information from a variety of sources, in order to investigate cases of detention imposed arbitrarily, or otherwise inconsistently with the relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 9 states: 'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile'. In con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venezuelan Torture Victims
Venezuelans (Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connections exist and are the source of their Venezuelan citizenship or their bond to Venezuela. Venezuela is a diverse and multilingual country, home to a melting pot of people of distinct origins, as a result, many Venezuelans do not regard their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship or allegiance. Venezuela as Argentina and Brazil, received most immigrants, during 1820s to 1930s Venezuela received a major wave of 2.1 million European immigrants, being the third country in Latin America to have received Europeans, behind Argentina and Brazil. Historical and ethnic aspects Pre-Columbian period Writing was not used in pre-Columbian times, a historical stage where various groups began to move throughout the Americas, thus making it difficult to find evidence of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Prisoners During The Bolivarian Revolution
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science. Politics may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and non-violent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but the word often also carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or in a limited way, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external forc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judicial Independence
Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government or from private or partisan interests. Judicial independence is important for the idea of separation of powers. Different countries deal with the idea of judicial independence through different means of judicial selection, that is, choosing judges. One method seen as promoting judicial independence is by granting life tenure or long tenure for judges, as it would ideally free them to decide cases and make rulings according to the rule of law and judicial discretion, even if those decisions are politically unpopular or opposed by powerful interests. This concept can be traced back to 18th-century England. In some countries, the ability of the judiciary to check the legislature is enhanced by the power of judicial review. This power can be used, for example, by manda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralenis Tovar
Ralenis Jolissa Tovar Guillén (born in Caracas) is a Venezuelan judge who in 2014 signed the arrest warrant against opposition leader Leopoldo López. In 2017 Ralenis announced that she was threatened to sign the warrant. Career Tovar pursued a career as a judge for seventeen years in Caracas. On February 12, 2014, during the protests in Venezuela, Tovar, Judge of the Sixteenth (16º) Court in control functions, issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Leopoldo López on charges that included "instigation to commit crimes, public intimidation, arson of a public building, damage to public property, homicide, serious injury, incitement to create disturbances," and "terrorism". The judge subsequently fled the country. Following the 2017 protests in Venezuela, the Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Prisoners In Venezuela
Throughout its history, many people have been arrested and imprisoned in Venezuela for political reasons, mainly during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez and that of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 20th century and during the Bolivarian Revolution in the 21st century. Definition The Venezuelan non-governmental organization Foro Penal, which keeps track of political prisoners in the country, has elaborated a definition for political prisoners during the Bolivarian Revolution: * For political causes: Those persons persecuted or arbitrarily detained who are accused of crimes or infractions traditionally characterized as "political", including "rebellion", "plot" or "treason", among others (as long as no violence has been used), with a political objective, which in turn can be divided into one or more categories. * For political purposes: Those persons arbitrarily persecuted or detained to fulfill a political objective. * Supervening: Those persons who are not arbitrarily or ille ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torture In Venezuela
Torture in Venezuela has been a consistent phenomenon throughout its history. Various dictatorships from the Spanish colonial era into the twentieth century utilized torture against common criminals and political opponents. In the twentieth century, torture was common during the dictatorships of Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Torture also took place occasionally during Venezuela's democratic period, particularly during social outbursts, such as during the Caracazo and the February 1992 Venezuelan coup attempt, 1992 coup attempts. Into the twenty-first century, torture reached levels that had not been seen since the Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in the 1950s. During the crisis in Venezuela, the United Nations, Organization of American States, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Foro Penal documented acts of torture and violence towards real or perceived opponents of the Bolivarian government, mainly detainees, including by state institutions such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American Left, American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, Criticism of capitalism, contemporary capitalism, and Corporate influence on politics in the United States, corporate influence on political institutions and the media. Born to Ashkenazi Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 720 members (MEPs), after the June 2024 European elections, from a previous 705 MEPs. It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India), with an electorate of around 375 million eligible voters in 2024. Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and rose above 50% for the first time since 1994. The voting age is 18 in all EU member states e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thor Halvorssen (human Rights Activist)
Thor Leonardo Halvorssen Mendoza (born 1976; ) is a Venezuelan-born human rights advocate and film producer with contributions in the field of public policy. Halvorssen is founder of the annual Oslo Freedom Forum and president of the Human Rights Foundation, an organization that states their mission is to promote freedom in authoritarian regimes. Halvorssen bought the Norwegian news magazine ''Ny Tid'' in May 2010. Halvorssen has appeared on television outlets such as Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN. He was a speaker at TEDx at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2010. Background Halvorssen was born in Venezuela to Hilda Mendoza, a descendant and a relative, respectively, of Venezuela's first president Cristóbal Mendoza and liberator Simón Bolívar. His father is Thor Halvorssen Hellum, who served as a Venezuelan Ambassador for anti-Narcotic Affairs in the administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez and as special overseas investigator of a Venezuelan Senate Commission. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Rights Foundation
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a non-profit organization that focuses on promoting and protecting human rights globally, with an emphasis on authoritarian regimes. HRF organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. The Human Rights Foundation was founded in 2005 by Thor Halvorssen Mendoza, a Venezuelan film producer and human rights advocate. The current chairman is Russian opposition activist Yulia Navalnaya, and Javier El-Hage is the current chief legal officer. The foundation's head office is in the Empire State Building in New York City. History The Human Rights Foundation was founded in 2005 by Venezuelan human rights advocate and film producer Thor Halvorssen Mendoza in response to the alarming rise of authoritarianism in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela. His family’s deeply personal experience with political repression—his father was arbitrarily imprisoned and his mother seriously wounded by security forces during a protest—shaped HRF’s early mission to boldly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
