Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms

Is venezuelan citizen's private life respected?

1. Fears about the excessive control the State seeks to exercise over the citizenry are reinforced by three very significant developments:

• The approval by the National Assembly, on December 7, 2004, of the new Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television This law is widely perceived to represent an increase in the State's control on radio and television programs in as much as it establishes a whole new series of mandatory provisions which are in violation of media standards and represent a clear intent to intimidate and compromise freedom of the press;
• The approval of the Law on the Reform of the Penal Code, which entered into force on March 16, 2005, widely understood to represent, as it effectively does, an intent to silence political opposition by defining dissent as a crime and by increasing the punishment for the so-called 'contempt crimes';
• The reversal of final sentences adopted by courts of law, including by the Supreme Court, in what constitutes an indication that any individual might be tried again even after having been declared innocent.

2. For a number of years, transcripts of conversations among opposition personalities have been made public both in State-owned television stations as in government-sponsored press and on the Internet. Such conversations are illegally taped, without the knowledge or consent of the interested parties and are used to slander, intimidate or accuse individuals for any content or intent of their conversations.

3. Thus, the Writ of Administration published on April 1, 2005 in the Official Gazette N° 38157 is viewed with distrust and as a threat to privacy. The Writ establishes the obligation to ask for private information from subscribers to mobile telephone services at the time of contracting such services, as well as the obligation by those same providers to convey information on the use of such services to the state security organizations.