Yesterday, a wide majority of the Spanish Senate, spanning across all political parties apart from the PSOE and Entesa, approved a strongly worded motion demanding that President Jose Luis Zapatero make urgent requests to the government of Venezuela that the rights of those being prosecuted for political motives be respected. The case of Eligio Cedeño is mentioned among many others . The following is a translation from Europa Press:
Senate, Against PSOE Vote, Requests Government to Ask Caracas to Respect Legal Rights
The motion criticizes judges and prosecutors who "routinely" apply criminal charges against opponents of the Venezuelan government
This morning in a Senate plenary session a motion was approved by a wide majority which demands that the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero "take the necessary actions before the Venezuelan authorities" in order to guarantee "the right to defense and other fundamental rights" in open criminal processes "against individuals opposed to the Government."
However, the motion, which was presented by the parliamentary group of Basque nationalist senators and approved without any amendments and only voted against by PSOE and Entesa, demands that "the constitutionally recognized right of every person to be judged in freedom be asserted," so that "situations of pretrial detention" are limited in Venezuela, exactly as it is set forth in the Constitution of the Latin American country.
The motion, defended by the deputy Iñaki Anasagasti of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), regrets that the "most basic " legal rights of those who are "politically detained" in Venezuela "are repeatedly ignored" and that "the victims are slandered in the media, are charged without grounds, arbitrarily imprisoned, and their rights to defense repeatedly infringed."
"In the handling of judicial processes against opposition politicians, civic leaders, businessmen, professionals, journalists, or students, there occurs a clear and reiterated shattering of the rights of defense," something that , according to the approved motion, "reflects the deterioration of the functioning of judicial institutions in Venezuela."
The plenary of the Senate also criticized in the motion that Venezuelan judges and prosecutors "are routinely instructed to apply criminal charges against political targets of the Government."
The motion also highlights that the list of prisoners, victims of reprisals, persecuted, or exiled in Venezuela "is long," although some cases stand out, such as the student Julio César Rivas, who was detained for 20 days for having participated in a protest against the controversial Education Law this past August, as well as the businessman and banker Eligio Cedeño, arrested in February 2007 as a preventative measure, held beyond the period established by law without having any charge against him at the moment of his arrest.
Given these facts, the group of Basque nationalist senators are justifying the intervention of the Spanish Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero because he "has made the defense and respect of human rights in the international spheres one of his priorities."
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