Rights monitor blasts Venezuela govt for expulsion

[Bacchus39]

anyone here about this yet??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_human_rights;_ylt=AkBJS10ys7V4rQAiyqGyzMS3IxIF

Rights monitor blasts Venezuela govt for expulsion By IAN JAMES and STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writers
Fri Sep 19, 5:21 PM ET



CARACAS, Venezuela - A leading Human Rights Watch monitor who was abruptly put on the first plane leaving Venezuela early Friday said his expulsion shows the intolerance of President Hugo Chavez's government to criticism.


Jose Miguel Vivanco, the rights group's longtime Americas director, told The Associated Press in Sao Paulo, Brazil that "we were forcibly expelled from the country as if we were criminals."

"This the first time that this has happened to us in the hemisphere," said an exhausted Vivanco after arriving in Brazil with his deputy director Daniel Wilkinson, an American.

Both were expelled for what Chavez's government called "illegally meddling in the internal affairs" of Venezuela.

"We aren't going to tolerate any foreigner coming here to try to sully the dignity" of Venezuela, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro declared.

The two were forced onto the first flight out just hours after presenting a report by their New York-based group concluding that "discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature" of the Chavez presidency.

"What happened is a confirmation of exactly the points that we raised in the report, and it shows the lack of tolerance in the government of President Chavez to criticism of his record on any area," said Vivanco, a Chilean citizen.

He said Venezuela expelled him "to avoid dealing with the issues, and distract attention by attacking the messenger."

Chavez had threatened to expel foreigners who come to verbally "attack" his government; this was the first time he did so.

Chile called the action against one of its citizens regrettable. Deputy Foreign Minister Alberto Van Klaveren said Venezuela's reaction was "totally out of proportion" and that Vivanco has criticized the situation in Chile before — something the government views as normal.

Vivanco said the two were met at their Caracas hotel after dinner Thursday by heavily armed policeman wearing camouflage.

Vivanco said he wasn't allowed into his hotel room; his bags had already been packed. He said he wasn't roughed up, though there was some shoving when a police officer took his BlackBerry phone. The Venezuelans later returned it — but with the battery missing.

"They told us that we had offended Venezuela's sovereignty with statements that amounted to meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela," Vivanco said.

They were shown on state television gathering the last of their belongings and being driven to the airport in a caravan complete with motorcycle escorts and flashing lights.

Vivanco said he didn't know where they were headed until they boarded the plane. After arriving in Sao Paulo, they retreated to a hotel to rest while making plans to fly back to the United States on Friday night.

Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra accused Human Rights Watch "of being intimately linked to efforts that have been uncovered to carry out a coup d'etat in Venezuela." He called it a "front organization" serving U.S. interests.

Maduro also accused Vivanco and Wilkinson of acting at the behest of the U.S. government and of receiving U.S. funding.

Human Rights Watch says it accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly. Vivanco has criticized governments of all stripes — for example, he is a harsh critic of what he considers a conscious effort by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a close U.S. ally, to suppress investigations of links between his political supporters and right-wing death squads.

Vivanco said Venezuela's government has regularly sought to label its critics "coup plotters paid by the (U.S.) empire," regardless of whether or not they actually were involved in any conspiracy.

Monica Fernandez of the group Venezuelan Penal Forum called Vivanco's expulsion "a decision that takes us further away from democratic principles."

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[struggle4progress]

1. Wrong -- but very common as the following selection shows:

British, German activists deported from China
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
Aug 25, 7:01 am EDT

BEIJING (AP)—China on Monday deported a British woman and a German man who took part in a protest during the Olympic Games, officials said, hours after eight American activists were sent home during the closing ceremony.

Mandie McKeown and Florien Norbu Gyanatshang were put on flights to Frankfurt in the morning, said officials from the British Embassy in Beijing and the Foreign Ministry in Berlin ... http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-china-protests&prov=ap&type=lgns

US academic deported and banned for criticising Israel
Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Monday May 26 2008

Norman Finkelstein, the controversial Jewish American academic and fierce critic of Israel, has been deported from the country and banned from the Jewish state for 10 years, it emerged yesterday.

Finkelstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor who has accused Israel of using the genocidal Nazi campaign against Jews to justify its actions against the Palestinians, was detained by the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, when he landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Friday.

Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours about his contact with the Lebanese Islamic militia, Hizbullah, when he travelled to Lebanon earlier this year and expressed solidarity with the group which waged war against Israel in 2006. He was also accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to Israel to visit an old friend ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/26/israelandthepalestinians.usa

U.S. to deport Palestinian rights activist
Prosecutors failed to convict former Florida professor of financing terrorism

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have decided to deport a former Florida professor and Palestinian rights activist after failing to convict him on charges he helped finance terror attacks in Israel.

Sami Al-Arian, who had met with U.S. presidents and other political leaders before his terrorism indictment in 2003, has reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge and be deported ... ttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12320833/from/RSS

Parkin deported to US: FBI says he's 'welcome'
By Jano Gibson
September 15, 2005 - 11:09AM

US peace activist Scott Parkin, who was deported from Australia this morning after being deemed a threat to national security, would be welcome back in his homeland, the FBI says ...

"As far as I'm aware a US citizen is welcome home," spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said ...

The activist, who had been held in a Melbourne correctional centre since last Saturday, was believed to have boarded a Los Angeles-bound flight at 10.25 this morning, said Greenpeace, who are helping Mr Parkin challenge the Immigration Department's decision to revoke his visa ... http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/parkin-deported-to-us-fbi-says-hes-welcome/2005/09/15/1126377402578.html

Published on Friday, July 19, 2002 by Inter Press Service
U.S. Activist Deported for Protesting Oil Pipeline

QUITO, ECUADOR - A United States citizen was deported Thursday from Ecuador after being detained Tuesday along with seven Ecuadorians as they engaged in a protest against the construction of an oil pipeline through the country's Amazon region.

The activist, Julia "Butterfly" Hill, best known for her two-year protest in which she lived in a giant redwood tree in the U.S. state of California, was taken without prior notice from the Provisional Detention Center, where she was held under arrest, to the Quito airport. Two hours later, the remaining detainees were released.

Hill said she had spent a long, tiring few days in Ecuadorian prison, but was not surprised to hear during the deportation hearing that the consortium Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP, heavy crude pipeline) Limited had sent a letter to the local police pressing for her deportation ... http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0719-04.htm