VenEconomy: How Many More Will Have to Die in Venezuelan Prisons? From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune December 2, 2014
One of the many rights taken away from Venezuelans by their rulers is that of life as the country becomes the new "sea of happiness" of Latin America.
And if the situation of insecurity is serious enough for those who live in "freedom," it becomes particularly virulent for those who have been deprived of it.
Thus the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) expressed its alarm at the situation of violence in local prisons in a recent report, calling the penitentiary system of Venezuela a "tragedy." And this is not an exaggeration, taking into account that prison riots have intensified over the last decade to accumulate casualties of 5,000 people who were under custody of the State.
It is a public fact that the country’s prison system has collapsed already. Here the survival of the fittest prevails as everyday life is confined to overcrowding, poor nutrition, lack of access to drinking water, poor ventilation, violence and anarchy.
After the bloody riots that took place in several prisons nationwide in 2011, the late President Hugo Chávez created the Ministry for Penitentiary Services, which supposedly undertook a project of reorganization in a bid to humanize the detention facilities. But the situation has not improved as some 1,400 people have died ever since.
Since 2007, international human rights bodies have been warning the Venezuelan government about the prison crisis, including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that ordered interim measures to "avoid the loss of lives and damage to the physical, mental, and moral integrity of all persons deprived of their liberty in the Uribana prison; of the people who may start serving prison time in the future, as well as those who work there and those who enter as visitors." Interim measures that are still in force.
It is precisely in the Uribana prison where a tragedy in the style of a Nazi extermination camp has been taking place for two weeks now.
A series of deaths allegedly caused by a "massive food poisoning" whose source has yet to be identified were triggered after a hunger strike initiated by a group of inmates as a means of protest against the precarious conditions of the prison facilities. So far, the death toll has risen to more than 40 prisoners, while some 90 are in critical condition with many of them hospitalized.
The situation is so serious that neither the own Government can hide it or ignore it. This way on November 27 the Public Prosecutor’s Office set up a "multidisciplinary team" to investigate the "irregular situation" in the Uribana prison, with three prosecutors assigned to the case. Julio César Pérez, director of the penitentiary center, was arrested for the deaths and a group of 700 inmates were transferred to other detention centers such as the General Penitentiary of Venezuela (Guárico state), Tocorón (Aragua state) and Tocuyito (Carabobo state); these include Raúl Emilio Baduel and Alexander Tirado, who were detained over the student protests that started in February of this year, and also beaten up and tortured in the same prison by their custodians.
It was even reported that the Minister for Penitentiary Services, Iris Varela, is paying a visit to the prison, interviewing inmates and apologizing to the families of the victims. However, none of this will prevent the victims under the custody of the State from growing in number. José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, raised the following question: "How many more will have to die so the Venezuelan government deals effectively with the crisis of its own prison system."
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