Posted on 12/15/2020 8:17:05 AM PST by MtnClimber
Venezuela's "law against hate" is suddenly a key tool for Nicolás Maduro to repress dissent, particularly online. A Reuters review of over 40 recent arrests found in each case that authorities used the law to detain critics of the president, his aides or allies.
Francisco Belisario, a Venezuelan mayor, retired general and member of the ruling Socialist party, had enough. His loudest local critic had accused him of bungling the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other big problems.
In August, he wrote a state prosecutor and requested an “exhaustive investigation” of his nemesis, Giovanni Urbaneja, a former lawmaker who had become a gadfly to the mayor and other Socialist officeholders. Urbaneja, Belisario wrote in a letter reviewed by Reuters, was conducting a “ferocious smear campaign” on Facebook and elsewhere.
Urbaneja not only defamed him and President Nicolás Maduro, the mayor wrote. He violated Venezuela’s Law Against Hate. The law, passed in 2017 but rarely used before this year, criminalizes actions that “incite hatred” against a person or group. Charge Urbaneja with hate crimes, the mayor implored the prosecutor.
Days later, several dozen masked officers raided Urbaneja’s home and took him at gunpoint for “a chat,” according to the police report of his arrest and Urbaneja’s wife. Urbaneja remains jailed, awaiting formal charges and a trial.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
When you turn in your arms it is too late. When they have you in handcuffs it is really too late. It is really odd that Reuters is reporting this. Are they trying to influence our perception to normalcy?
Coming very, very soon to a nation near you. 😁
Coming soon to America if the fraud perpetrated in the election continues.
Sounds eerily like our hate speech laws.
Why is a police raid and putting you in jail not hate then?
Hate speech = speech that the government hates.
This has always been to point of laws against hate'...political control - thought crimes. Maduro's just taken it to it's logical conclusion faster that our democrat thug party.
The police had no expectation of meeting resistance.
America’s law against hate will suddenly be a key tool for democRats to repress dissent, online and elsewhere. A review of over umpteen expected arrests will find in each case that the authorities use of the law will incarcerate all critics of the president, his aides or allies.
Venezuela wields a powerful “hate” law to silence Maduro’s remaining foes
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Sounds pretty similary to Big Tech’s justification for censorship in the US.
Year or so ago there were huge protest marches in that country. What happened? People just gave up?
I would not be surprised if google is helping Maduro the same way they help Xi and the CCP in China.
l8r
Good thing we don't have this, the entire media would be jailed.
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