Latin America: Week in Review, Venezuela
Venezuela: 1,200 Visitors Held Hostage In Prison Released
March 11, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Inmates in Venezuela’s Uribana Jail on Wednesday released approximately 1,200 hostages that they prevented from leaving on Sunday during visiting hours, an apparent attempt to negotiate better human rights protections within the prison. Uribana inmates reportedly expected a military intervention in the prison on Monday, a charge that Venezuelan authorities deny. The hostages were mostly friends and family members of the prisoners, and while some of the detained visitors were compliant, others were held against their will, according director of the non-governmental Venezuelan Prisons Observatory (OVP). On Wednesday, the prisoners reached an agreement with prison authorities and most of the visitors were allowed to leave, although Prison director Nelson Bracca said a few are still waiting to be released. According to the OVP, Venezuelan detention facilities are currently occupied at more than three times their intended capacity, and at least 487 inmates were killed in Venezulean prisons from January to October of 2011.
Read more from the Latin American Herald Tribune and The Washington Post.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- French citizen Florence Cassez, sentenced to 60 years in prison in Mexico for kidnapping, may be released or retried due to irregularities following her 2005 arrest.
- 46 percent of Latino respondents to a Fox News Latino poll said that they found the term “illegal immigrant” offensive.
Caribbean
- Residents of Denham Town in Kingston, Jamaica are blaming police for the shooting deaths of a thirteen year-old girl and five other citizens as police crack down on their neighborhood.
- Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez blasted the U.S. government for excluding Cuba from the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia.
- Haitian President Michel Martelly showed off his Haitian passport at a news conference to quell rumors that he is not a Haitian citizen.
- A Dominican man reportedly murdered his wife and then killed himself after seeing a photo of his wife on Facebook with another man.
Central America
- Guatemalan judge Miguel Angel Gálvez ruled Thursday that former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos-Montt will not be granted amnesty for crimes against humanity committed during his 1982-83 rule.
- Honduras’ Armed Forces Chief of Staff Rene Osorio Canales said that Honduras has deployed troops to protect bus and taxi stops in Tegucigalpa after a wave of assaults on bus and taxi drivers.
- Belize’s ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) won a narrow parliamentary majority on Thursday.
Andes
- Several hundred indigenous protesters in Ecuador began a two-week march across the country to protest a large-scale Chinese-built copper mine near El Pangui, Ecuador.
- Colombian police said Thursday that they fear that nine miners trapped in a flooded coal mine are now dead after being trapped Wednesday afternoon.
Southern Cone
- The Brazilian Sports Ministry said in a statement Thursday that it accepts FIFA’s apology for a comment by FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke last week “and expects that this will not happen again”.
- Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva remains hospitalized in São Paulo as he recovers from a lung infection, but is said to be improving.
- Britain’s Prince Harry will be traveling to Brazil for a scheduled trade mission after his visit to Jamaica.
Image: Globovisión @ Flickr.
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