Image source, Courtesy Paul Ruiz
30 years in prison. The maximum prison sentence required by Venezuelan legislation for crimes such as murder, kidnapping and rape was imposed on Margie Xiomara Orozco Tapias, a 65-year-old doctor.
However, the health worker did not kill or kidnap anyone. His crime was that, in the midst of the electoral campaign for the presidential elections on July 28, 2024, he sent a voice message via the WhatsApp application to a group of residents of the town of San Juan de Colón in the Andean state of Tachira (border with Colombia), in which he called for a vote against Nicolas Maduro, and held him responsible for the economic crisis that the country is going through.
Eight days after the election, which Maduro won, according to the National Electoral Council, although it has not yet provided evidence to support this statement, police arrested Orozco.
Paul Ruiz, the doctor’s son, told BBC Mundo: “Some police officers arrived at the house on the night of August 5 and said to my mother: ‘Come with us.’ She didn’t want to go, but the police told her that she was not detained, but they wanted to interview her and that’s why I accompanied them. We went three days without hearing from her.”
The doctor’s registration reached the hands of some government sympathizers, who reported her to the Public Prosecution after threatening to withdraw benefits such as a food package or a subsidized cooking gas cylinder.
Orozco’s case is the latest in a series of judicial actions against citizens who exercised their right to freedom of expression on social media. This is a right that the Venezuelan authorities warn is “not absolute.”
Image source, Courtesy Paul Ruiz
The pretext of invasion
He added: “These calls endanger peace in Venezuela and are the reason why the United States government wants to invade us.”
That’s what Judge Luz Dare Moreno Acosta would have said when he convicted Orozco, on November 16, of treason, conspiracy and incitement to hatred, those who witnessed the act said as the verdict was read.
But what did the doctor say to sentence him to the maximum penalty? “I asked the community to come out and vote (against Maduro) and (for neighbors) to stop the impudence of supporting the government, while their children work away and the country collapses,” Ruiz said.
The doctor’s son denied that his mother had committed a crime.
He added, “She did not take to the streets to throw stones or burn tires. She did not ask for a foreign invasion.”
In recent weeks, the United States has assembled a fleet of warships in Caribbean waters – among them the newest and largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford – to achieve the stated purpose of combating drug trafficking.
However, they assert from Caracas that this military deployment is actually aimed at “regime change” in Venezuela.
“Just as you suffer, so do the people in government,” the judge told Orozco, according to the son’s story, adding that he got the details from some lawyers who were present when the chief judge of Tachira’s Fourth District Court read her ruling.
Although the ruling has not been published, the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office confirmed to BBC Mundo that it had occurred, but declined requests to comment on it.
Image source, Gladjimi Balisaj/U.S. Navy via Getty Images
Even the fact that Orozco suffered a heart attack during the year she was detained was not a mitigating factor for justice.
Last March, Judge Moreno refused to allow the doctor to continue the trial on conditional release, considering that “there is a risk of flight” and because he “may influence witnesses to falsely inform the court, endangering the truth of the facts and the achievement of justice.”
The ruling came weeks after Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello warned that they would “search” for anyone who supported the invasion.
He warned weeks ago that “if someone decides to demand the invasion of our country, he immediately assumes that he is excluding himself from his obligations as a Venezuelan, and the state reserves the measures it deems appropriate to exercise.”
Image source, Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
Be careful what you say
Other people who heard Orozco’s voice confirmed to BBC Mundo that “the recording was 17 minutes long and was very aggressive in some parts.” This would explain why Article 20 of the controversial Constitutional Law Against Hatred, Peaceful Coexistence and Tolerance applies to the doctor, according to court records.
The rule states: “Anyone who publicly or through any appropriate means of public dissemination encourages or incites hatred, discrimination or violence against a person or group of persons, on account of their real or perceived membership in a particular social, ethnic, religious or political group, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression or any other discriminatory ground, shall be punished with imprisonment for a period of ten to twenty years, without prejudice to civil and punitive liability for the damage caused.”
The ambiguity and breadth of this text has led to criticism from international human rights organizations, which assert that it could be used to silence critical voices.
Between 2021 and 2023, at least 22 Venezuelans were arrested for exercising freedom of expression. Espacio Público reported that many of the arrests were linked to content published on digital platforms.
Image source, Harun Ozalp/Anatolia via Getty Images
Before the conviction against Orozco was known, two other similar rulings were issued. The first was Marcos Palma, 50, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for an audio recording he sent to a WhatsApp group in which he complained that they had not delivered the gas cylinder he had paid for and called on his neighbors to protest.
Weeks later, Randall Telles, a 22-year-old nursing student from the plains state of Barinas, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a TikTok video in which she criticized Maduro and Cabello. However, his family maintains that the recording was not made by Tillis but is a montage made using artificial intelligence.
These cases explain why many in the country choose to avoid discussing certain topics on digital platforms or constantly delete their phone records.
In 2017, Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, admitted that the controversial anti-hate legislation had a “preventive, educational and deterrent nature.”
A practicing judicial official, who requested anonymity, warned: “Freedom of expression is not an absolute right, and it has limits. In Venezuela there is legislation that regulates it.”
Image source, Pedro Mattei/AFP via Getty Images
Without support
The ruling against the doctor was criticized inside and outside the country.
“This case shows that the lack of independence of the Venezuelan judicial system is deeply rooted and that it continues to operate as part of the state’s repressive apparatus,” Gloria de Mes, Venezuela rapporteur at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), told BBC Mundo.
Having stated that the anti-hate law “severely restricts the right to freedom of expression in Venezuela and generates a strong inhibitory effect, incompatible with a democratic society,” de Mes assured BBC Mundo that “the application of this law in cases like the one described confirms the climate of fear and self-censorship” prevailing in the country and “discourages any form of dissent, even outside Venezuela’s borders.”
For their part, Venezuelan jurists questioned the legal basis of the ruling against Dr. Orozco.
Criminal lawyer Zaire Mundaray explained to BBC Mundo: “For the crime of incitement to hatred to occur, the message must have provoked an expression of hatred by one individual against another. Who did it incite? What the doctor did was express her suffering.”
The former Director of Procedural Procedures of the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office also did not consider the application of the crimes of treason and conspiracy to be correct.
He added, “The conspiracy involves an attempt to modify the republican form, but what was the specific measure that the doctor took to end democracy and institutions? The crime of treason talks about uniting with foreign countries or enemies, but here it is not mentioned that she allied with anyone.”
“With this kind of sentence, the government wants to deprive us of our right to kick (protest),” the son of the convicted woman said, reiterating that his mother was never involved in any political activities of any kind.
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