December 16, 2009 By James Kimer

UN Experts Criticize Chávez for Judicial Crackdown

I know that we try to put all our Venezuela news over on the other blog these days unless it has something to do with Russia, this is still some pretty dramatic news from Robert Amsterdam’s case down there, holding down the front pages of the UN News Centre and other international publications.  [As a side note, it is interesting to note the parallel developments between Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  They are both very fond of jailing lawyers who are peripherally involved with political cases.  So far Venezuela’s lawyer hostage has survived, but the same can’t be said for Russia.]

From Reuters:

Three U.N. human rights experts on Wednesday accused President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela of creating a climate of fear among his country’s legal profession with the arrest last week of a woman judge.