Western media outrage varies with the circumstances and is not applied universally. Indeed, the press maintains a surprising silence when other countries impose draconian measures for considerably less severe disorders than those that have occurred in Venezuela.

The case of France is revealing. On October 27, 2005, following the accidental death of two teenagers pursued by the police, urban riots broke out in certain Paris suburbs and other major cities around the country. The extent of the violence – which did not result in a single death – was less than what has occurred in Venezuela in recent weeks.

However, on November 8, 2005, President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency throughout the country and imposed a curfew, both of which remained in force for several months. These were actions permitted under Decree 2005-1386, an April 3, 1955 law that had been adopted during the war in Algeria, legislation that had not been used since 1961. The law allows for the suspension of constitutional guarantees and seriously undermines civil liberties because it “prohibit(s) the movement of people”, “establish(es) protected areas where the security and length of stay of individuals can be regulated” and, “in territorial circumscriptions or specific regions, allows for house arrest of individuals residing in an area established by the decree”.

Similarly, “the Minister of the Interior, for the entire territory in which a state of emergency has been declared, in conjunction with the prefect of the Department, may order the temporary closure of theatres, pubs and bars, indeed of meeting places of any kind as determined by the decree provided for in Article 2.” These authorities are also empowered to “ban meetings that are deemed likely to cause or encourage disorder.”

The law of April 3, 1955 confers to the “administrative authorities referred to in Article 8 the power to order house searches by day or by night” and empowers “the same authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure control of the press and publications of any kind as well as radio broadcasts, film screenings and theatre performances.”

This legislation also empowers military justice to replace the civil justice system. Thus, authorities “may authorize military courts to judge crimes and related offences that otherwise would have been responsibility of the Assize Court of the Department,” thereby undermining the jurisdiction of national common law.

To justify such measures, measures that contravene the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Paris had relied upon Article 15 of the ECHR, which authorizes, “in time of war or public emergency threatening the life of the nation”, the suspension of obligations to which France had subscribed.

At no time has Venezuela – struck by far more serious violence than what occurred in France in 2005 – declared a state of emergency, suspended constitutional guarantees, infringed civil liberties or imposed military justice at the expense of civil justice.

that is laid out in this article, is very stark and needs to be understood by all 'consumers' of corporate news. The article contrasts how the corporate media has treated public disorder and government's response in France and Venezuela. France, experiencing a similar state of internal disorder as Venezuela's recent rightwing riots, took draconian measures to stop it, but France is not therefore portrayed as undemocratic and tyrannical. Venezuela, whose government never suspended any rights, in the face of massive disorder--including murder and extensive destruction of public and private property by rightwing rioters--is portrayed just that way--as undemocratic and tyrannical--for stopping this violence and restoring public order with far less stringent measures than France employed.

This article makes the contrast crystal clear. It deserves further quotation:

Western media outrage varies with the circumstances and is not applied universally. Indeed, the press maintains a surprising silence when other countries impose draconian measures for considerably less severe disorders than those that have occurred in Venezuela.

The case of France is revealing. On October 27, 2005, following the accidental death of two teenagers pursued by the police, urban riots broke out in certain Paris suburbs and other major cities around the country. The extent of the violence – which did not result in a single death – was less than what has occurred in Venezuela in recent weeks.

However, on November 8, 2005, President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency throughout the country and imposed a curfew, both of which remained in force for several months. These were actions permitted under Decree 2005-1386, an April 3, 1955 law that had been adopted during the war in Algeria, legislation that had not been used since 1961. The law allows for the suspension of constitutional guarantees and seriously undermines civil liberties because it “prohibit(s) the movement of people”, “establish(es) protected areas where the security and length of stay of individuals can be regulated” and, “in territorial circumscriptions or specific regions, allows for house arrest of individuals residing in an area established by the decree”.

Similarly, “the Minister of the Interior, for the entire territory in which a state of emergency has been declared, in conjunction with the prefect of the Department, may order the temporary closure of theatres, pubs and bars, indeed of meeting places of any kind as determined by the decree provided for in Article 2.” These authorities are also empowered to “ban meetings that are deemed likely to cause or encourage disorder.”

The law of April 3, 1955 confers to the “administrative authorities referred to in Article 8 the power to order house searches by day or by night” and empowers “the same authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure control of the press and publications of any kind as well as radio broadcasts, film screenings and theatre performances.”

This legislation also empowers military justice to replace the civil justice system. Thus, authorities “may authorize military courts to judge crimes and related offences that otherwise would have been responsibility of the Assize Court of the Department,” thereby undermining the jurisdiction of national common law.

To justify such measures, measures that contravene the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Paris had relied upon Article 15 of the ECHR, which authorizes, “in time of war or public emergency threatening the life of the nation”, the suspension of obligations to which France had subscribed.

At no time has Venezuela – struck by far more serious violence than what occurred in France in 2005 – declared a state of emergency, suspended constitutional guarantees, infringed civil liberties or imposed military justice at the expense of civil justice.

A more recent example is equally illustrative. Following the riots of August 14, 2012 in the city of Amiens, which caused significant property damage (a school and several public buildings were burned) and injured 17 policemen, the French justice system severely punished the perpetrators of these crimes. Six people were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to five years in prison without the possibility of parole. The juvenile court of Amiens sentenced five teenagers, aged 14 to 17, to prison terms ranging up to 30 months.

It would be easy to continue citing examples. When the New York police arbitrarily detained over 700 peaceful demonstrators who had been brutalized by the police, the Western media carefully avoided accusing the Obama administration of violating human rights.

Similarly, when the Brazilian police violently cracked down on peaceful protesters in Sao Paulo, arresting some 262 people in a single day as well as assaulting several journalists, the media did not question the democratic legitimacy of President Dilma Rousseff.

Western media are incapable of being impartial when it comes to interpreting complex Venezuelan reality. The charter of journalistic ethics is systematically flouted by a press that refuses to fulfill its duty to provide truthful information and chooses instead to defend a certain political agenda. This agenda flies in the face of the basic principles of democracy and goes against the will, expressed repeatedly at the polls, of the Venezuelan people.

Original source:

http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/35356/venezuela+y+el+doble+rasero+de+los+medios+informativos+occidentales.shtml

Translated from the French by Larry R. Oberg.

government, the atrocities perpetrated as soon as they appointed former death squad leader Billy Joya to lead their military police and got busy rounding up anyone who looked like someone they wanted to harass, even penning a lot of the overflow from the jails in soccer stadiums in the capital.

Real DU'ers, moved to watch this coup and gather information available saw the destruction of human rights immediately, and continued to keep track of the complete story as it unfortunately developed before our eyes.

HOW WELL WE KNOW the pains our own corporate media went to, to white wash the coup, and to mold public perception of what the hell happened there. So much of our information had to be recovered slowly from more respectable sources closer to the events. Of course the right-wing trolls infesting the place were shown to be completely supportive of the violent de facto government but we all know how this thing played out, and who the villains are, of course, BEYOND ALL DOUBT.
They aren't Democrats, by god, and who doesn't know that? They are monsters. Right-wing monsters.
US tax dollars are still flowing to that fetid government, of course. Honduras was such a blessing to Reagan during his Iran/Contra days, just right for forming and arming all those death squads.

For anyone who wants to revive some memory cells, a lot gets covered in this article:

HONDURAS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT
http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/honduras09eng/Chap.5.htm

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29 September 2009
Honduras : Micheletti Suspends Constitution

[center]See 'Honduras coup leader Micheletti decrees 45-day suspension of constitution,' Below.[/center]
On the morning of June 28, coup regime soldiers stomped into the offices of Radio Globo and Channel 36 in Tegucigalpa and silenced their transmitters. The two networks filed court orders to be able to get back on the air. And for the past three months they’ve each been subject to written orders from the Honduras regime to cease broadcasting (the journalists, in turn, refused to be censored) and to paramilitary attacks that poured acid on their transmitters, and yet they and their journalists heroically got themselves back on the air rapidly.

On this morning, three months later, it was déjà vu all over again, as those same military troops reenacted the battle of June 28, busting down the doors of both broadcasters and this time removing their transmitters and equipment. And soldiers have surrounded both houses of media to prevent the people from retaking them.

This time, due to yesterday’s coup decree (see below), there is no legal recourse for the journalists. Under the decree, if a judge even looks at a motion from those media, he, too, can be rounded up, arrested and detained. And if another media reports what happened, it, too, can be invaded and silenced by force.

Today’s “do over” of the June 28 Honduras coup proves two big truths.

First: that the original coup failed to establish control over the country and its people. More than 90 days of nonviolent resistance have demolished what little support the coup regime had inside and outside of Honduras, and left them only with their small core of oligarchs and security forces to defend their putsch against the majority.

And second: That despite all the regime’s Orwellian talk of how it was a “legal” coup, how it was executed to defend the Constitution, and how the continued broadcasting of critical media proved it was not a dictatorship, its intention all along was far more sinister: to erase democracy and its most basic freedoms in order to establish autocratic control by a few over 7.5 million Honduran citizens and the lush natural and human resources in that land.

A significant portion of the Honduran population has gone underground overnight. Tipped off that last night their homes would be raided and they would be hauled off to the soccer stadium in Tegucigalpa where the regime already holds at least 75 citizens incommunicado -- reports of the use of torture are all the more credible because the regime won’t allow any attorney, doctor or human rights observer inside the stadium to inspect -- other rank-and-file Hondurans opened their homes to resistance organizers throughout the country. They are hiding from the regime, but they are in constant contact with each other, and with our reporters.

More:
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/honduras-micheletti-suspends.html
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OVERVIEW The situation for human rights defenders (HRDs) in Honduras has deteriorated dramatically since the 2009 coup. Honduras continues to face serious challenges in combating violence and insecurity. Human rights defenders continue to suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment as well as judicial harassment, threats and stigmatisation. Journalists, lawyers, prosecutors, those defending the rights of women, children, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, indigenous and Afro-Honduran communities, and those working on environmental and land rights issues are particularly at risk.

On 28 June 2009 President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed from power in a military coup d'etat which has deeply divided Honduran society. Six months of widespread protests and frequent curfews followed. Many important civil and political rights and guarantees were suspended. Since the inauguration of President Porfirio Lobo in January 2010, human rights defenders and journalists have seen another upsurge in violence against them as they carry out their legitimate human rights work. Margaret Sekaggya, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, visited Honduras in February 2012 and in her conclusions noted that “a significant number of human rights defenders have been issued with precautionary protection measures by the Inter-American System and I am disturbed by information that the authorities’ failure to provide effective protective measures has resulted in them being victims of killings, attacks and threats”.

The pervasive culture of impunity combined with the lack of protection for those defending human rights increases their vulnerability and leaves them open to attacks from both state and non-state actors. The perpetrators of violations against many defenders of environmental, land and indigenous rights, are often influential landowners or logging companies. In the Lower Aguán Valley, a long embattled agriculturally rich region, dozens of members of the campesino movement have been killed, whilst others face kidnapping, intimidation, harassment and detention. Across the country, human rights defenders from various organisations working on LGBTI rights have been targeted by threats, surveillance, kidnapping, intimidation and killings.

Despite these threats the defenders of the LGBTI community continue to work for progress in this extremely dangerous environment. LGBTI defenders in Honduras are doubly discriminated against. They are discriminated firstly because they are human rights defenders and secondly because they defend LGBTI rights. Journalists continue to face grave risks as they report on human rights violations. Constant threats, harassment and killings of journalists have led many to self-censor. Many community radio stations were closed shortly after the coup and whilst some remain inoperative, others face attacks and raids. Despite the extremely dangerous environment, to date there is still no national protection programme for human rights defenders in Honduras.

http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/honduras#sthash.edCnoeFJ.dpuf