There are many things Noam Chomsky, the pre-eminent American linguist and left-wing political commentator, and Hugo Chávez, the socialist President of Venezuela, have in common. The detention of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni is not one of them.
Mr Chomsky has publicly urged his political ally to immediately release the 47-year-old judge, who is suffering from cancer, from what he described as degrading and cruel imprisonment based on “fragile” charges.
Ms Afiuni was arrested in December 2009 by Venezuela’s secret intelligence police after she freed a businessman jailed on charges of circumventing currency controls. His pre-trial detention had exceeded Venezuela’s legal limits, and the judge said she was following United Nations guidance.
At the time of her arrest, Mr Chávez said in a televised broadcast that, in earlier days, Ms Afiuni would have been put before a firing squad. Instead, he called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years.
Ms Afiuni, a single mother, spent more than a year in a women’s prison where other prisoners threatened to kill her and tried to force her into sex. In February Ms Afiuni underwent a hysterectomy at a cancer hospital before being placed under house arrest pending trial for corruption.
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In his public letter, Mr Chomsky said he had already spent months on Ms Afiuni’s case, which was first brought to his attention last November by the Latin American initiative of the Carr Centre for human rights policy at Harvard University.
He said he had been “directly involved” in mediation efforts with the Venezuelan Government as he sought her release from prison through a “gesture of clemency” by President Chávez.
“The way she was detained, the inadequate conditions of her imprisonment, the degrading treatment she suffered in the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina, the dramatic erosion of her health and the cruelty displayed against her, all duly documented, left me greatly worried about her physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as about her personal safety,” Mr Chomsky states in the letter, published by a Sunday newspaper.
Mr Chomsky said the judge had been “subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity”, and that she must be set free “in conformance with the human dignity the Bolivarian revolution presents as a goal”.
“In times of worldwide cries for freedom, the detention of María Lourdes Afiuni stands out as a glaring exception that should be remedied quickly, for the sake of justice and human rights generally and for affirming an honourable role for Venezuela in these struggles,” he wrote.
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Mr Chomsky, a linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the world’s most important public intellectuals, is a vocal supporter of Venezuela’s socialist revolution, while Mr Chávez applauds his friend’s criticisms of US imperialism.
Mr Chávez sent sales of Mr Chomsky’s book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, soaring after he held the book during a 2006 appearance at the United Nations.
Mr Chomsky regularly appears in Venezuelan media, and earlier this year Mr Chávez suggested Mr Chomsky as a possible United States Ambassador to Venezuela.
Leonardo Vivas, co-ordinator of the Latin American initiative at the Carr Centre, told The New York Times Mr Chomsky was “someone whose voice could be heard in Venezuela”.
Mr Chomsky told another newspaper it appeared Mr Chávez had intimidated the judicial system during his 12 years in power.
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“It’s striking that, as far as I understand, other judges have not come out in support of her … that suggests an atmosphere of intimidation.”
He also said the threat of authoritarianism in Venezuela, and across South America, had to be guarded against.
“A trend has developed towards the centralisation of power in the executive which I don’t think is a healthy development.”
The public request for Ms Afiuni’s freedom was made as Mr Chávez remained in Cuba after surgery for cancer, from which Mr Chomsky wished the President a swift and complete recovery.
“I shall keep high hopes that President Chávez will consider a humanitarian act that will end the judge’s detention.”