Freedom of thought is also gone in Venezuela?

MAJOR UPDATE Janiot does Escarra

It is not enough that freedom of information and expression are being killed this week in Venezuela, freedom of thought is also questioned.  In what must be a first for any self described democratic country, a new law voted in a rush today will punish any representative in the National Assembly to switch sides, to vote according his or her conscience.  You need to read the AVN brief note to measure the fact in full.

This so wrong on so many aspects that one must wonder if they realized what they were deciding when they planned that law.  There must dozens of constitutional violations in such a law, so obvious that we do not need to dig into it.  I mean, if that precedent were to be accepted we could conceive in the future laws that would forbid freedom of religion since you would not be able to convert to a different religion.


Parliament would become totally unnecessary since we would only need to count the percentage vote once every 5 years and name a single person managing the different percentile votes to approve or not vote any law sent by the executive.

But Nazional Assembly president, Cilia Flores, new born fascist extraordinaire, had the gumption to say that the law was necessary because of the "betrayal" of PODEMOS.  That is, the very basis of parliament, of representative democracy, the undoing and undoing of coalitions according to the country situation would be forbidden!  She even felt sorry that this new law could not be retroactively applied to PODEMOS.

Soon, following the implications of such legislation, thinking differently than the "majority" will be considered betrayal.  That is, if you do not publicly show support then you will be accused of thought crime and woe is you.

Of course, this blogger is guilty, guilty, guilty!

MAJOR UPDATE

Sure enough, the preposterous idea that an elected representative should never vote according to his or her conscience has been a flash news all around the world including at CNN.  Tonight CNN en español star journalist, Patricia Janiot, interviewed first Carolina Botero of IACHR  To my great surprise, Carolina Botero as a spokes person of the IACHR was all but militant in her criticism of the current laws under discussion (note, the European Parliament also condemned recent developments in Venezuela, so it is really a world wide rejection).

To "balance" CNN gamely called Carlos Escarra, one of the biggest (in all senses) apologists of the regime.  Well, the discussion turned sour quickly becasue Janiot actually wanted a reply to her question: why would  you punish a representative that voted according to his conscience?  And Escarra, showing the lout he is, simply insulted her and hung up the phone.  Even Escarra silver tongue could not defend that one, so out of civil discourse the law is.  Observe, if you understand Spanish how Escarra used the standard chavista strategy to question the journalist when the question is a difficult one.  But Janiot has dealt with Chavez hismelf and she certainly was not going to be browbeaten by a scum like Escarra.