U.S. Mayors issue a resolution supporting Ledezma. The Conference of Mayors of the United States, through a communique, expressed its "unequivocal condemnation of the undermining of democratic governance and the principle of administrations, governments and freely and independently elected officials in Venezuela, as well as the intimidation and prosecution of freely elected officers, governments and administrations. The text further expresses that the resolution will be presented to the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and the U.S. State Department, and to official representatives of the Government of Venezuela in the United States. Mayor Antonio Ledezma (ABP), continuing his visit to New York, had a private meeting with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg before participating in the Summit "Creating Employment and Developing the Work Foce," held yesterday at Columbia University. Ledezma came to the United States on Sunday, where he has developed a strong agenda for making the case that "President Chávez sells Venezuela as a wonder of the world (.. .), when the reality shows us that the situation is almost as bad as what is happening in Iran," said Mayor Bloomberg in a press release.
Protests around the world against media closures in Venezuela. The diplomatic headquarters of Venezuela in various world capitals yesterday received a visit from young people who marched in favor of freedom of expression and rejection of the "harassment" that the government of Hugo Chávez is carrying out against independent media. Tegucigalpa, Santiago de Chile, Asuncion, Panama, Madrid, Paris, Montevideo, New York and Miami among other cities recorded protests to demand the return of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) to its open frequency signal and to reject a possible closure of the Globovisión news channel. White shirts, red gags in their mouths and banners with messages referring to freedom of expression were the common denominator of the marches organized by the Venezuelan group "A World Without Gagging" in more than 30 cities and in 15 capitals through the social network Facebook.
The National Assembly approved the partial reform of the Criminal Procedure Code once the Interior Policy Commission submits the report spelling out the reasons for moving forward with the changes. Among the items of interest proposed for reform is article 219, which addresses the interception or recording of private communications. According to the draft, what will be available, according to law, is the interception or recording of private communications, whether on background, by telephone or other means, whose content will be transcribed and added to the proceedings. Congressman Ismael García announced that they would denounce this amendment before the Supreme Court because it persecutes and "criminalizes the population and ultimately will corral the media."
President Chávez called on revolutionaries to organize against a conspiracy. "The conspiracy has as its backdrop the possibility that a grant for a television channel (Globovisión) is about to end. They are preparing themselves for that, because they believe that if that happens, they will overthrow the government," he said during his program "Aló Presidente". In this regard he called on revolutionaries to occupy public spaces and added that "if the opposition took to the streets to protest and call for the guarimba plan, we will go to the streets and take them on". He called for revolutionary discipline and urged revolutionaries to be in the streets to respond to any destabilization attempts. "We will be disciplined: if they go to the streets, we will be waiting for them, if they go for rifles, we will grab our rifles," he said.
From June 29 to July 11, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH) of the OAS will hold a series of sessions on analyzing cases in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico and Barbados at its headquarters in Costa Rica. The court indicated that it will conduct some of its hearings behind closed doors and others open to the public for background and reparations, in addition to deliberating in private over the possibility of handing down a few sentences and monitoring compliance of various sentences issued several months ago. The cases for which public hearings will take place, which involve victims, advocates and representatives of the State, are against Mexico, Venezuela and Barbados.
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