Venezuela Rejects US Human Rights ReportVenezuela Thursday rejected the human rights report on situation in the South American country as "banal" and meddling in its internal affairs.The US State Department's report covering the 1999-2000 period said that police violence increased and freedom of expression was limited in Venezuela. People's Defender German Mundarain requested the US embassy to bring out the list of the 2,000 people killed in confrontations with police during the last eight months of 2000 as the report claimed. He refuted as untrue the report's frivolous remarks that 2,000 extrajudicial executions were registered in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez rejected the report by quoting a line from the Bible that says, "before criticizing the mote in another's eye, see to the beam that in thine own." Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila and Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel slapped it as "banal" and intervention in their country's internal issues. Despite a chorus of rejection from countries concerned, the US State Department issued a report every year finding faults in the situation of human rights in many other countries, especially the developing ones. |
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