THE ECONOMIST: Venezuela ... A police state?

It may be an autocracy, but Hugo Chavez' government has never been particularly repressive, let alone a dictatorship. A decree issued late last month with no prior debate threatens to change that. It creates a new intelligence and counter-intelligence system which in the name of national security enlists the entire population in what could potentially amount to a spy network. “This undoubtedly brings us close to...a ‘police state’,” declared Provea, a human-rights group. The decree authorises police raids without warrant, the use of anonymous witnesses and secret evidence. Judges are obliged to collaborate with the intelligence services. Anyone caught investigating sensitive matters faces jail. The law contains no provision for any kind of oversight. It blurs the distinction between external threats and internal political dissent. It requires all citizens, foreigners and organisations to act in support of the intelligence system whenever required—or face jail terms of up to six years. “The law establishes vague, generic crimes, which is very dangerous,” in the view of Rocío San Miguel of Citizens' Oversight, an NGO. She says it abolishes the presumption of innocence and places the citizen at the service of the state rather than the other way round. She argues that the law also violates the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Inter-American Human Rights Convention. According to one of the few remaining independently minded members of Venezuela's supreme court, Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, the “totally repressive law” also violates the constitution and the right to due process.