Committee of Freedom of Opinion, Expression and Peaceful Assembly.
Chair: Erick Espinosa.
Moderators: Sabrina Carriles & Daniela Casavantes.
TOPIC A: Identifying possible solutions in human rights violations in recent Venezuelan protests.
Since the time Nicolas Maduro won the presidency by only 1% of the effective voters; tensions have been growing in Venezuela. Riots and protests have been appearing in many places around Venezuela, but mainly in it’s capital Caracas, because university students (who are in favour of the right ideals of Henrique Capriles; Maduro’s opponent in the elections) have been demanding that the falsehood of the elections must be punished.
On the other hand, Henrique Capriles demanded all of the protesters to stop violence and appeal to the Venezuelan judicial system to take issue on the case. This provoked disappointment from the majority of his followers, and that’s when the radical separatists, led by Harvard educated Leopoldo López started to follow him instead of Capriles and more violence sprang through all Venezuela.
This started a chain reaction which led to people from the high and middle class to join the protests against Maduro demanding security and accusing police brutality. There has been many reports of the usage of extreme violence from the police and army against protesters. These accusations vary from crimes like the disappearing of leaders of the separatist movement to police brutality and even public murdering of protesters.
Human rights are by international law the most valuable right every human being has. No matter where or how they were born, from the moment they lives they are protected by international law. Human rights against protestants are being violated thoroughly because violence on the streets is causing heavy clashes between police and people to end in the human rights violation of a lot of people in Venezuela.
International law protects them, and the UN is trying to find a solution to those violations because we are aware of the situation, aware of the problem and is our obligation to put an end to it.
TOPIC B: The protection of human rights involving the relationship between police and protestants: Ferguson.
An unarmed 19 year old Michael Brown was walking in the street when he started to argue with a police officer in Ferguson Missouri. Reports and witnesses claim that the officer threatened Brown of shooting him when Brown started to run and the officer opened fire on him and shoot him to death.
The following day there was a relatively peaceful protest from the inhabitants and friends and family of Michael Brown in the place where the shooting took place. They had posters that demanded justice and peace on Ferguson, and nothing happened except from some shouting and arguing with the local police.
In the night thaT day with tensions getting higher, the peaceful protest transformed into rioting and looting of stores, causing chaos and violence that ended in the clash between looters and the police. Looters even entered a local super market firing 5 to 6 shots according to a 911 report.
But according to the locals the case was different. There was a lot of police brutality against protesters and some witness claim that police officers started to beat people in ways that violated their human rights. On the other hand there are reports that claim protesters shot and wounded a police officer during one of the riots. Ferguson police department has two suspects.
The confrontation from the authority or law (in this case the Ferguson Police Department) with people who are angry with them because of one “mistake” they made, ends up in one single chaotic thing: violence. And in the middle of the chaos of the problem some officers do things they should not do because they are so many and are dressed the same that anonymity protects them from being judged, even though they fail to respect the protesters human rights. We must find a way in which rioting and looting of stores is stopped without the usage of force that could harm the protesters.