Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-11-10, 17:27:36 | version 1.33.00
REDACTED Page 151 of 190 to certify that he suffered from a “rectal haemorrhage.”661 ii) Gengis Pinto On 19 February 2014, a national guardsman fired at Gengis Pinto, a 36 years old, in his face at point blank range with rubber bullets, despite the fact that he had already been detained and was offering no resistance. Pinto had been participating in an anti-government rally in San Antonio de los Altos, where hundreds of protesters had blocked off part of a highway. Pinto raised his arm to block the shot, which struck his hand, badly mangling several of his fingers, and embedded several pellets in his forearm. Despite serious pain, loss of blood, and several requests, guardsmen refused to take Pinto to a doctor. Instead, they beat him, threatened to kill him, and took him to a military base for questioning. Approximately six hours after being shot, guardsmen took Pinto to an emergency clinic, where they refused to let the doctor examine him privately. Though the doctor told guardsmen that Pinto needed immediate specialty care that the clinic could not provide, guardsmen ignored his advice and took Pinto back to the military base. There, he was handcuffed to another detainee and made to sit in the sun for roughly 10 more hours before being taken to a private clinic where he was operated on.662 iii) Daniel Quintero On 21 February, 21-year-old student Daniel Quintero participated in an anti- government protest in Maracaibo (Zulia State). He was stopped in his way home by officials of the National Guard. They put him in an armed vehicle where officers took turns at beating him up. Daniel said that afterwards: “One of officers switched on the video on his mobile phone, handed it to a colleague, then got on top of me and made obscene sexual movements, they brushed my legs with their rifles and said to me ‘hey, he shaves his legs, they are going to rape you in Marite, and if they rape you, they will kill you as well'”.663 Quintero was then taken to the National Guard’s Regional Base No. 3 (Comando Regional 3) in Maracaibo, where the commanding officer “told me they were going to burn me. And at his side he had a can of petrol, wires and matches […] and he said they were going to burn me and that nobody would ask about me […] The whole army 661 HENDERSON, V.L. (2014) Human Rights Watch Alert: All-Star Cast Doing Dirty Work for Venezuelan Regime?; Also see: FORO PENAL VENEZOLANO. (2015) Politically motivated detentions, torture, other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and killings (2014-2015) 662 HRW (2014). Punished for Protesting: Rights Violations in Venezuela’s Streets, Detention Centers, and Justice System. pp.16-17 663 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2015) Venezuela: the Faces of Impunity. p.28