Finding things to do in Venezuela everyday is hard. The prices only go higher and the salaries only stand by. As result, this country has seen the rise of different forms of entertainment, being the "microteatro" one of the most famous in the capital of the country, Caracas. This new form of entertainment consists of 15-min plays presented simultaneously, so that the viewer can attend several of them on a site visit.
One of these plays, called “Dos Policías en Apuros” (Two cops in Trouble) sets as a parody of the current state of the “National Police”, in which both main actors acting as gay cops.
This play doesn’t seem right to the actual National Police, which decided to detain the actors and the producer on Sunday, August 4; establishing the actors were captured in flagrance for the crime of "usurpation of public function", taking into account the use of National Police uniforms in the play they were presenting.
The response of the NP (National Police) by Twitter to the arrest of the actors was that their work
"through its content seeks to ridicule and misrepresent the true Police functions"
Even when the Venezuelan Constitution enshrines freedom of expression as a fundamental right. Various NGOs and human rights defenders label this event as a homophobic attack and against freedom of expression. This attack does not surprise coming from the Venezuelan security forces, since it is an broad entity that has been characterized through years by its homophobic attitude and against to the Venezuelan LGBTQ + community.
Close to this detention we could track down one when a soldier was placed under the order of the Public Ministry (Venezuelan Department of Justice) after seized boxes with rubber dicks, vibrators and sex toys. The action was executed in the Urban Security Detachment of “Fuerte Tiuna”, the main military base located in Caracas, in charge of the Bolivarian National Guard, Venezuelan Gendarmes. At the beginning most of the virtual community in Venezuela saw this detention as a joke. However, the main problem here is that such “sex toys” aren’t illegal in Venezuelan legislation. Even though, the art. 565 of the Venezuelan Organic Code of Military Justice states:
“The officer who commits acts that undermine or lower his dignity or allow such acts, without trying to prevent him by the means authorized by law, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to three years and separation from the Armed Forces.The same penalty shall apply to any military who commits sexual acts against nature.”
This article it’s found in the Second Book, Title III called "Of the Various Species of Crime", Chapter VI called "Of Cowardice and other Crimes against Military Decorum", for the NGO Venezuela Igualitaria this is a form of discrimination by establishing that sexual relations between homosexuals are a crime and an immoral and cowardly act, because of this they filed a nullity appeal for unconstitutionality of Art 565 of the Organic Code of Military Justice in the Supreme Court of Justice which seek to resolve that:
“Through different decisions, it has given rise to institutionalized persecution of persons with a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex, which clearly damages what is established in Article 60 of the Constitution, regarding the right to the protection of their honor, privacy, privacy, own image, confidentiality and reputation, as well as the right to free development of personality, equality before the Law, and non-discrimination provided in Articles 20 and 21 of the CRBV, contrary to the principles fundamentals of the Democratic State such as the right to life, liberty, justice, democracy and the preeminence of human rights, as well as its essential purposes defined as the defense and development of the person and respect for their dignity”
Currently it is held that in Venezuela there is no discrimation, that everything is just “chalequeo” (silly jokes), but the only true behind that statement is that we want to hide a profound discrimination in our country that is even supported by the current dictatorship, more than once. This discrimination is so rooted that not even middleschools can scape from this when because of a kiss between two girls on a bus they were expelled from school.
This violence is very common in Venezuela but is being ghosted under the statement that “there are more important things going on right now”, when 109 homicides have occurred between January 2009 and May 2017, according to the Observatory of Trans Murdered Persons. Thus, the country "that does not discriminate" was in fourth place in America with the highest murder rate of LGBTI people in 2017. Brazil ranked first on the list with 868, followed by Mexico with 259 and the United States with 146 in the same year.
Back in 2008 “Acción Ciudadana Contra el SIDA (ACCSI)” in a study established that LGBTQ+ people from caracas reported 50% of negative experiences with the police, and only 19% reported positive experiences, these figures are equal to or close to the average of three major cities in the country Maracaibo and Merida with 50% and 16% respectively.
Even when ghosting is a “normal” thing with this problems in Venezuela, there are a lot of activists currently fighting for LGBTQ+ rights to be recognized and respected, To name some that I have known, we have Dr. Tamara Adrian (Law professor at my university), the first transgender parliamentarian of the National Assembly whose struggle for the recognition of gender change has not ceased, the effort made by several NGOs for the National Assembly to approve equal marriage in the country through the "Ley del Amor", and the lawsuit filed before the constitutional court to recognize homoparental families. Of these initiatives, only the last one has borne fruit, being a significant advance, although not sufficiently forceful in many respects by accepting the homoparental family but not the union of these people under the figure of marriage.
Even when the road is long it is necessary to know that there are many people willing to walk it, and it is the job of each of the Venezuelans to understand the situation of the LGBTQ + community in the country and not ignore it under various pretexts.
Original Article with references: LinkedIn
