CUTV Press.- The international campaign promoted by the Unitary Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CUTV) is advancing, collecting the support of trade union leaders from different countries to a formal request addressed to the president of the Republic and other high-level authorities of Venezuela’s public powers, demanding the full release of workers and union leaders unjustly imprisoned or with parole regimes or restriction to their civil, union or political rights.
In the text, signatories from different parts of the world affirm that «moved by the principles of proletarian internationalism and class union solidarity» they go to the Venezuelan head of state to request «with the urgency of the case» the adoption of «the necessary measures and [that authorities] exercise the actions that take place, in order to grant full freedom without restrictions and restore labor and citizen rights to the Venezuelan workers and union leaders who are deprived of liberty or with measures of parole and/or restriction of their rights and with different criminal proceedings ongoing in Venezuela, for having led labor struggles, carried out union actions, made complaints or accused third parties of committing a crime.”
The letter lays out some cases with a brief summary of the characteristics of each situation. The list begins with the steel trade unionists Leonardo Azócar and Daniel Romero, about to serve one year in prison, highlighting the urgent request for medical attention for Romero.
The list continues with the persecution of workers’ struggles in the Pellas Plant of the [state iron firm] Siderúrgica del Orinoco (Sidor), with the precautionary measure issued by a judge of the state of Bolívar [south east Venezuela] against 22 workers (including Azócar and Romero).
It also reviews the case of Johana González, a worker at Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa Etanol) and the judicial slant against her, which keeps her imprisoned, despite the release order issued several years ago.
Likewise, the trade unionists of the Magisterium Robert Franco, of the College of Teachers in Carúpano [noth east], with more than three years imprisoned and Víctor Venegas, President of the section of the National Federation of Education Workers of Venezuela in Barinas [west], currently out of prison but with restrictions.
In addition, the case of the oil union leader Eudis Girot is documented, who was imprisoned for 17 months and today is free with restrictions on his rights; the workers of the private company Embutidos Alimex, from Lara state [west], Roger González, Eugenio Montes, Luis Rivas and Miguel Alvarez, who were deprived of liberty for about two years and are currently on parole.
The petition, so far, has been signed by hundreds of union leaders from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, France, Greece, India, Panama and Uruguay, and also demands that decisions be taken and necessary actions carried out «so that the repeated practices of criminalization and persecution of labor struggles cease and are eradicated in Venezuela, as well as restrictions on the civil, union and political rights of the workers who assume social struggles and critical positions.»
In the text, which collects broad support from trade union leaders and workers’ leaders of the world, including prominent leaders of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), it is recalled by those who subscribe «on repeated occasions we have spoken out against the aggressions undertaken by the imperialist powers against the nation and the people of Venezuela» but that «on this occasion, with the same conviction and firmness, we demand that the Venezuelan authorities fully guarantee the rights to freedom of union freedom and the peaceful protest of the Venezuelan working class.»
Tribuna Popular 