Venezuela releases judge Afiuni from house arrest

[Socialistlemur]

Source: Associated Press

Venezuelan authorities on Friday freed a judge who was arrested in 2009 after late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez objected to one of her rulings. Her case became a cause celebre for the opposition and international human rights groups.

Dozens of supporters met Maria Lourdes Afiuni outside the apartment building where she has been under house arrest with cries of “freedom,” as she walked to the street without handcuffs or police escort for the first time in three-and-a-half years.

Amid a few tears, she thanked the well-wishers for coming out, but declined to comment further since she is still under a gag order not to discuss her case publicly. Instead the judge, her daughter and her lawyers went to a church to pray.

Thelma Fernandez, an attorney for the 50-year-old magistrate widely considered Venezuela’s most high-profile political prisoner, said a Caracas judge had released Afiuni from house arrest so she can seek treatment for health problems.





Read more: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/06/16/2003564944

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No comment.

[msanthrope]

1. I'm sure the Chavistas will be by to tell you why Dear Leader had to put this pesky

judge under house arrest.

[dbackjon]

2. And that this is perfectly acceptable under a democracy

And no sign that Chavez was a dictator

[msanthrope]

4. Well..that pesky judge refused to follow orders! What was St. Hugo to do? nt

[iandhr]

3. In 5,4,3,2.1

[geek tragedy]

5. The Afiuni case is a good litmus test for people

who are not just Bolivarian supporters, but brainwashed cultists.

If people are okay with a President ordering a judge thrown in jail for following domestic and international law, they'd be okay sending everyone at DU to a gulag if it suited them.

[MADem]

6. This is a signal.

Never would have happened while Chavez lived--he had a personal thing against this woman.

[SkyDaddy7]

7. It seems that many of the Chavez's adherents...

are the same ones who defend the Syrian regime & the Iranian regime as innocent regimes that are only trying to defend themselves against the evil US...And these regimes treat their people with respect & dignity and anyone who says otherwise is just a Chicken Hawk looking for another war.

[msanthrope]

8. They were Ghadaffi fans, too. nt

[SkyDaddy7]

10. Yes they were!!

SAD!!!

[Lugal Zaggesi]

9. If only...

... President Carmona's coup d'etat took hold in 2002, after he issued the decree dissolving the national assembly and the supreme court and announced his far-right government...

freedom and democracy and justice would be flourishing in Venezuela today.

[lsewpershad]

11. Indeed

[Socialistlemur]

13. Who knows?

Hard to tell what ifs in hypothetical meandering of non existent reality. In this world, where Chavez returned to power, he ordered the woman jailed. And thus the decay of Venezuelan justice is a known fact, it is tangible. It is real.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

15. Dissolving

the national assembly and the supreme court as the first actions of the new "President" Pedro Carmona is also a known fact, tangible, real.

Did I mention the criminal fugitive Pedro Carmona (who escaped to rigthwing Colombia) also voided the Venezuelan Constitution in his eventful 36 hour "rule" ? He also suspended the Attorney General, Controller General, state governors and all mayors elected during Chávez's administration. Little Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga, rich from Venezuelan oil, was a busy beaver.

But I'm sure he would have gotten around to "justice", eventually, unlike all the earlier rightwing Venezuelan regimes.

[dbackjon]

17. And this has WHAT to do with this?

Trading a right wing dictator for a left-wing dictator is not progress.


Only a complete and utter moron would think so.

[happyslug]

12. She was under arrest for releasing a prisoner, who then escaped to the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Maria_Lourdes_Afiuni

The Judge claims she had to release the prisoner due to the failure of the Government to prosecute within two years of his arrest (the time set by Venezuelan law). At lease one person accused her of taking a bribe. , others said she broke the law by releasing the prisoners without the prosecution being present.

If she took a bribe that is enough to get her jailed even in the US til her trial. If she unlawfully released the prisoner, but do to a mistake in law, she could NOT be jailed in the US. More facts are needed to decide and given the overall hatred or love of Chavez on DU I just do not expect to see an even handed discussion on this. Chavez is either the worse man who has ever lived since Hitler, or a Saint, nothing in between. Did he make mistakes? Yes, but was he a dictator? No.

The best analysis of this hatred or love of Chavez was one that said that elsewhere in most countries that are undoing a push to the left, not only is this push coming from the bottom 3/5 of the population, but also the next 1/5 of the population, i.e. 4/5 of the nation is supporting the push to the left which is opposed by only the top 1/5, and even that 1/5 is split, between the top 1% and their immediate follows and the rest of the top 20% of the population (1/5 is the same as 20%). This seems to be the case in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The Leftist government has massive support from the bottom 90% of the population, losing only the top 10% and in most cases only losing the top 1%. You do not hear of problems from those leftist governments for the right has little support in the country given this overwhelming support for the leftist government in control (and any effort to improve the poor is at the cost of the top 10% not the 20-40% of the population who are richer then 1/2 the population but are NOT in the top 10%).

The problem in Venezuela, is the top 2/5 of the population opposes Chavez (i.e the top 40% of the population). While Chavez had overwhelming support from the bottom 3/5th (Thus his constant re-election and the election of his successor). Thus you have a true class warfare situation, with a huge section worried that they will lose out to the bottom 3/5 and thus oppose what Chavez represented. Thus those people who are earning more then what 1/2 of the population earns, but less then the top 10%, fear they may lose part of that to the bottom half of the population and thus oppose Chavez.

Why the difference? It appears to be historical, Venezuela tended to have a huge underclass that Chavez wants to improve. The people earning more then 1/2 of the population is earning had been treated as a special class by the 1%, for they were to control the country and make sure the bottom 50% did not revolt. Chavez saw these "Upper Middle Class" people as tools that had be be broken to break the power of the top 1% and went after their privileges. Thus these Upper Middle Class people saw themselves being pressured, first by their bosses above them and also by the bottom 10% through Chavez. They were used to pressure from the top, often so use to it they dismissed it as "normal". What was new, was the pressure from the bottom and they grew to quickly hate it.

Thus the almost class based love Chavez or hate Chavez situation in Venezuela and on DU. Chavez is either someone who can do no wrong, or someone who can do no right. Nothing in between for the poor see him as their best hope to get out of poverty, while the Upper Middle Class saw him as putting them among the bottom 50%.

Chavez has done some very good things for Venezuela, his attacks on poverty and his effort to improve the position of the poor are two of the best things he has done. His attacks on people among the Upper Middle Class are some of the less then good things he has done, he wants them to understand that what has been the norm for the last 100 years in Venezuela is no more. He has attacked members of the Upper Middle Class who were in a position to oppose him and what he wanted to do for the poor. Instead of working with them, Chavez fought them. For example Chavez attack on the Government owned Oil Industry. A lot of the opposition was and are tied in with the oil industry and in 2002 the opposition tried to use oil against Chavez, with a lock out. At the end Chavez fired 40% of the employees (Mostly top management on down) and given these were among the Upper Middle Class, that class hatred of Chavez intensified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_general_strike_of_2002%E2%80%9303

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-venezuela-election-oil-idUSBRE88J17320120920

One of these days the Upper Middle Class (those making more then 50% of the population, but less then the top 10%) will realize that the real enemy is the top 10%, but till then they will fight for the "Rights" they had for the last 100 years, preferring to keep rights they know of, then greater rights people just talk about.

This Class difference is why so many people hate Chavez, and why so many people love him. Hopefully his successor will be less confrontational and able to win over some of these Upper Middle Class people, but till them I fully expect to see this hated or love of Chavez in both Venezuela and DU:

More on the Oil Strike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_general_strike_of_2002%E2%80%9303

[Socialistlemur]

14. Nevertheless, it is a human rights abuse case

It's very hard to whitewash a human rights abuse case like this with lies and verbiage, isn't it?

[totodeinhere]

16. It is not acceptable to throw a judge in jail for making a decision that the government

doesn't agree with. And if she were accused of accepting bribes she should be entitled to due process which she did not receive.

[happyslug]

22. Under the law in Venezuela she could be held a prisoner in pre-trail detention for 2 years

That is the technically she used to dismiss the charges against the banker who then skipped the country. This law is NOT new in Venezuela, it has existed since at least the 1960s (and was used to hold people BEFORE Chavez took over). Thus, under the concept of Due Process, she could be held.

Now, in the US, the general rule for pre trial detention is 180 days, unless the Defense caused the delay in getting to trial. Any delay requested by the Defense is NOT included when you add up the days in pre-trial detention.

The Supreme Court of the US has put down no specific numbers of days, but tends to require Prosecutors to work within the 180 day period.

On the other hand, the US Supreme Court has refused to order the release of the Prisoners in Guantanamo, even through some are coming up to ten years imprisonment without trial.

Thus the detention is not unheard of even in the US.

[dbackjon]

18. Chavez was a dictator

NO amount of white-washing changes that fact.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

19. You're delusional

but with effort,
you can change that fact.

[dbackjon]

20. Not at all. I can see the reality of Chavez

Apparantly you can't

[Lugal Zaggesi]

23. Eligio Cedeño

is a Venezuelan criminal being used in a US propaganda battle with Leftist Central and South American governments, who fled Venezuela immediately after Judge Afiuni personally walked him out of court to the Judge's parking lot where he got on his getaway motorcycle then fled the country to Miami.

They count on useful idiots like yourself to fall for the media manipulation that turns a $27 million embezzler and his corrupt judge accomplice into poor, oppressed Freedom Fighters - Cedeño was granted "political asylum" in Miami after he ran off there to enjoy his ill-gotten gains that were stashed in no-questions-asked banks in the Caribbean - same ones Willard Romney also uses.

Judge Afiuni hopes the u.i.'s that helped her out of house arrest will further help her escape to Miami too, where her big payoff awaits.

You should write to your Congressperson, to help poor Maria Lourdes get to her loot in Miami before she's too old to enjoy it:

[happyslug]

21. He left the opposition control over the media, he accepted the defeat by the voters

Chavez accepted defeat by the voters of his last proposed changes in the Venezuelan Constitution, he left go all of the people involved in the coup against him. he was NOT known to keep political prisoners (The person this thread started with is about the only one reported). Now Amnesty International reports he has 40 political prisoners, but others have reported the US has over 100.

Remember, it is rare of Political Prisoners to go to jail as Political Prisoners, they are charged with some crime, generally a common crime, such as taking bribes, parking in a no parking zone, making a speech that is claimed to be inciting a riot, rioting, arson, and even murder (Or any other crime that the authorities can make). The difference is comparing how the charge was made AND the Sentence imposed. More often then not, one sides "Political Prisoners" is the other side's traitors.

http://www3.law.harvard.edu/journals/hjrej-articles/archive/vol18/soffiyah.pdf

Comment on what is a Political Prisoners (including a comment that Florida wanted to make receiving two welfare check a month a felony and thus such people would not be able to vote, and the reason for this was Political, most people on welfare vote Democratic).

http://www.pjvoice.com/v52/52005news.aspx

Some prisoners remain prisoners for they refuse to admit they committed a crime, and as such denied parole"
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_8782.shtml

Most Political Prisoners are prisoners for actual crimes, crimes which are rarely charged against others OR if charge rarely ends up in a Jail Sentence:
http://sfbayview.com/2012/u-s-prisons-packed-with-political-prisoners/

Has Chavez been accused of the above? Yes, but so has the US as you can see by the above examples. Venezuela is a very violent country, with a high murder rate but no one blames Chavez for that, for Venezuela had a high murder rate BEFORE Chavez took over. His crackdown in the press and the courts are less then the US did in the late 1940s and into the 1950s during the height of the Red Scare (and no one calls that period a period of American Dictatorship). People can protest, people get elected NOT of Chavez's party. People have left Chavez's party. All of these would NOT occur in most dictatorships.

Thus my point, while Chavez was a strong president, I have seen NO evidence of a tendency to a Dictatorship. People who oppose what he wanted done would view him as the enemy, but that does not make him a dictator. You need more then opposition to his policies, and losing those political fights before you call anyone a dictator. So far all I have seen is the opposition to what he wanted to do in Venezuela, and people mad at losing those political fights. That is politics in any democracy and thus NOT evidence of a Dictatorship.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

24. Notice how the King of Saudi Arabia

is never called a "Dictator" in the USA ?

Saudi Dictators - our Good Friends.



Four-times elected President of Venezuela - as beloved as FDR - somehow he's a Socialist "Dictator" to the low-information citizens of the USA: