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 184 of 190 received several death-threats by twitter. Many of the messages included pictures of dead bodies.819 Foro Penal lawyer Marcelo Crovato has also been persecuted for defending demonstrators. Crovato was arrested without a warrant when he arrived to a police raid at his clients’ home in Chacao, Caracas, to represent them as his attorney.820 He spent 10 months in jail without having had a preliminary hearing. In jail, he suffered serious physical harms and psychological problems, to the extent that he eventually tried to commit suicide on December 20, 2014. 821 Crovato’s case is developed in the imprisonment section. On March 20, 2015, the IACHR expressed alarm regarding a persecution policy against those NGOs members and activist who exercised their right to complain before the institution. The IACHR stated that those individuals were “being singled out, intimidated, and discredited as a result of having exercised their right”.822 The IACHR stated that “the President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello— speaking on the television program ‘Con el Mazo Dando’ on the State-run channel VTV, which ran on February 11, 2015—mentioned the individuals who were going to participate in the Commission’s hearing in March. On that TV program’s website, this information is published under the title ‘Extreme Right NGO in Alliance with IACHR Commissioner to Sanction the Program ‘Con el Mazo Dando.’ The same site posted photographs of six human rights defenders, a logo of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and, superimposed on the photo of the President of the National Assembly, the image of a telescopic sight similar to the kind used to shoot at a target. The articles refer to the participation in Commission hearings of Marco Antonio Ponce, of the Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social (OVC); Rafael Uzcátegui, of the Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA); Ligia Bolívar, of the Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB); Carlos Nietos, of Una Ventana para la Libertad; Rocío San Miguel, of Control Ciudadano; Carlos Correa, of Espacio Público; 819 6TO PORDER. (2015) José Haro denuncia supuestas amenazas de muerte (+audio); NOTICIAS DE VENEZUELA. (2015) 27Mz Continuan amenazas contra equipo del abogado Jose Vicente Haro 820 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2015) Venezuela: the Faces of Impunity. p.36; MEDINA, O. (2015) Crovato: prisoner at risk. El Universal. [Online] 3 January. Available from: http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/150103/crovato-prisoner-at-risk [Accessed 27 October, 2015] 821 CFR. (2015) Communication Foro Penal Venezolano. CFR. [Online] January. Available from: http://foropenal.com [Accessed 27 October, 2015] 822 IACHR. (2015) IACHR Expresses Alarm over Intimidation in Venezuela directed against People Who Come before the Inter-American Human Rights System. Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. [Online] 20 March. Available from: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2015/032.asp [Accessed 27 October, 2015]