CARACAS: Human rights groups called Thursday on the UN Human Rights Council to press the government of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on its rights record in an upcoming review.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council, which was established in 2006, is scheduled to meet on Friday in Geneva to do a "periodic review" of the human rights situation in Venezuela.
Venezuela is sending Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro to Geneva to make the government's case, and has vowed to aggressively defend its record.
But a group of 150 Venezuelan civic organizations issued a report Thursday highlighting the government's failure to abide by nearly a dozen verdicts handed down against it by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
"In 11 sentences there has been no investigation, no punishment," said Marino Alvarado, the director of Provea, one the civic organizations.
The Inter-American court's most recent ruling invalidated a political ban slapped on opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, which has prevented him from running for office since 2005.
The government has referred the issue to Venezuela's Supreme Court, keeping the ban in force until it rules otherwise.
Lopez hopes to run against Chavez in 2012 presidential elections as the candidate of a unified opposition slate. Chavez is battling cancer, but insists he will be well enough next year to win by a "knock-out."
In Washington, meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called on the UN Human Rights Council to pressure Venezuela to respect civil liberties.
It charged that Chavez's government has "effectively neutralized the independence of Venezuela's judiciary" and "systematically undermined freedom of expression and the ability of human rights groups to promote basic rights."
"It has also prosecuted government critics," the rights group said.
"It is critically important for them to press Venezuela to strengthen judicial independence, protect free speech, end its aggressive adversarial posture toward human rights defenders, and stop prosecuting government critics," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, HRW's Americas director.
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