Tiananmen Square & Venezuela’s Caracazo: A Tale of Two Massacres

[MADem]

1. More recent VZ massacres

GENEVA (Reuters) - Venezuela's judiciary is persecuting students, dissidents and independent judges while turning a blind eye to most crimes in a country with one of the world's highest murder rates, an international human rights watchdog said on Thursday.

About 1,500 students face prosecution after three months of street protests this year with no evidence they took part in any criminal act, including about 160 still behind bars, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said.

Forty-two people, including 38 civilians, were killed in the daily marches to decry crime, inflation and food shortages in Venezuela. Excessive use of force by security forces has been documented as well as least 14 alleged cases of torture.


Yet there has been no substantial progress in investigating such cases, the ICJ said.

The independence of legal institutions in Venezuela is "very weak", the Geneva-based jurists group concluded in a report.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-venezuela-judiciary-idUKKBN0EG1SH20140605