Politics The Spanish Senate on Wednesday urged the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to intercede with the Venezuelan authorities so that the fundamental human rights of the opposition activists facing criminal proceedings in Venezuela are respected.

The motion was filed by the parliamentary group of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), and was approved by this party, the conservative Popular Party (PP), and the Catalan nationalist group Convergencia i Unió (CIU).

Basque senator Iñaki Anasagasti said that this motion is intended to advocate human rights wherever they are violated which, in his opinion, is occurring in countries having superb relations with Spain, including Venezuela.

He recalled that legal proceedings against dissenting politicians, social leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals, journalists or student leaders "openly violate" the right to defense, Efe reported.

In Anasagasti's view, infringement of the right to defense comes as a result of the "deterioration" of the judicial institutions in Venezuela, where "justice has been turned into a tool to persecute dissenters, whose most basic procedural rights are repeatedly disregarded."

Anasagasti stressed that the Venezuelan judges and attorneys "are routinely instructed" to file criminal charges against political opponents of the government. He added said that the people targeted are slandered in media and arbitrarily detained while their rights are violated repeatedly.

Spanish opposition Senator Dionisio García Carnero (Popular Party) shared Anasagasti's view, and noted that Venezuela has a real dictatorship, despite the fact that President Hugo Chávez rules his country under a disguise of democracy.

However, Arcadio Díaz Tejera, a Senator for the ruling Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE), said that Spain must be "respectful" of the internal processes in other countries. He underlined that "it is not the task of democracy to replace people's will."

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas