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ePaper created 2015-11-10, 17:27:36 | version 1.33.00
REDACTED Page 120 of 190 Márquez Facebook page and that he was participating in an Airsoft game in those pictures. 495 The intensity and violence of the repression was maintained throughout the February- June 2014 period. vii)Guillermo Sánchez On March 5, following Ameliach’s public call, President Nicolás Maduro explicitly called on pro-government paramilitary groups to repress the protests. In a speech which was transmitted live as a mandatory broadcast (cadena nacional), Maduro said: “These groups of guarimberos, fascists and violent [people], and today now other sectors of the country’s population as well have gone out on the streets, I call on the UBCh, on the communal councils, on communities, on pro government armed paramilitaries: flame that is lit, flame that is extinguished”. On March 12, a week after Maduro’s speech, Guillermo Sánchez died after being shot, reportedly by a pro-government armed group, in La Isabelica, Valencia. Guillermo Sánchez, who lived in the road where protests were taking place, had left home that day to go and paint his mother’s house. His wife, Ghina Rodríguez, told Amnesty International that eyewitnesses stated that a group of armed men shot and beat him. They then put him on a motorbike and flung him towards state police officers who were stationed near the protests, saying: “here’s another one for you, expect some more”.496 While, as reported by local and international NGOs and media, most of the protests were peaceful, there have been allegations by the GoV that some of the protests were violent. In those cases on which violence aroused during the protests, the GoV security forces, acting together with pro government armed paramilitaries, were reported to have triggered the violence by indiscriminately attacking entire demonstrations, and in some cases bystanders.497 In addition, even though the acts of violence were isolated to small groups of protestors, many sources confirm that the protestors were unarmed across the country and that they responded in the worse cases by throwing rocks and bottles at the national security forces, which used indiscriminate force including live ammunition in retaliation.498 495 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2014) Venezuela: Human Rights at Risk Amid Protests. p.10; Also See: VIVAS, V. (2014) Muerte de José Alejandro Márquez en Venezuela; EL UNIVERSAL. (2014) El patrón de la muerte 496 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2015) Venezuela: the Faces of Impunity. p.18 497 HRW (2014). Punished for Protesting: Rights Violations in Venezuela’s Streets, Detention Centers, and Justice System; OVCS (2014). Conflictividad social en Venezuela en 2014 498 HRW (2014). Punished for Protesting: Rights Violations in Venezuela’s Streets, Detention Centers, and Justice System