Executioner judges and hitmen cannot continue with impunity.

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 04/09/2025

Share:     

There are political prisoners and exiles because 21st-century socialism has institutionalized judicialized persecution to neutralize defenders of freedom and democracy, instill fear in the population, and grant impunity to organized crime. False accusations by pseudo-judges are part of the “state terrorism” through which dictatorships impose themselves in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, and through which they dismantle democracy with para-dictatorial governments in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras. Labeled as prosecutors, judges, or magistrates, they are merely executioners or hitmen and cannot continue to enjoy impunity.

An effective way to identify a dictatorship is to examine a country’s reality based on the five “essential elements of democracy” established in Article 3 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter: “Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; access to and exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law; the holding of periodic, free, fair elections based on universal and secret suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people; a pluralistic system of political parties and organizations; and the separation and independence of public powers.” The absence of even one of these elements signals the end of democracy.

The cornerstone of 21st-century socialist dictatorships is state terrorism: “The use of illegitimate methods by a government to produce fear or terror in the civilian population to achieve or promote behaviors that would not occur otherwise.” One of the primary methods of this terrorism is the use of the justice system to falsely accuse, persecute, imprison, and convict innocent individuals, seize their assets, and subject their families to conditions of defenselessness.

Beyond crimes such as prevarication, material and ideological falsehood, the use of forged documents, false accusations, and denunciations, members of the judicialized state terrorism system commit crimes against humanity. According to Article 7.1 of the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity include acts such as: “e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty… f) Torture… h) Persecution of any group or collectivity with its own identity based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or gender grounds… k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or seriously affecting physical or mental health.”

Members of justice systems controlled by 21st-century socialism usurp their titles because they are not judges; they are executioners who mercilessly punish while obeying orders disguised as judicial decisions. They are hitmen because they are physical and character assassins, salaried thugs hired to violate human rights.

The existence and operation of these executioner-judges and hitmen are institutionalized through the norms with which 21st-century socialism has supplanted the “rule of law” in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. Constitutions and laws that violate human rights instead of protecting them have eliminated “the non-retroactivity of the law, the presumption of innocence, due process, judicial impartiality, and legal equality,” among other universal rights.

The so-called judicial processes are “21st-century lynchings” because they “execute without legal process and in a tumultuous manner” innocent victims who are subjected to imprisonment, exile, persecution, clandestinity, or silence and submission due to the state terrorism they perpetrate.

The evidence against the executioner-judges and hitmen of 21st-century socialism is “public and notorious” and is documented in their actions, processes, and rulings. In Cuba, organizations such as Cubalex, Prisoners Defenders, and others certify nearly 1,200 political prisoners and the reality of millions of exiles. In Venezuela, reports from Foro Penal Venezolano certify 816 political prisoners, and the world hosts over 8 million exiles. In Nicaragua, the Mechanism certifies 54 political prisoners, and hundreds of thousands of exiles have even suffered the loss of nationality. In Bolivia, the Global Human Rights League certifies 326 political prisoners, over 27,000 exiles, and now the dictatorship’s judges are maneuvering by releasing high-profile prisoners to maintain their impunity.

In countries with para-dictatorial governments, notable examples include those who sign detention orders against former presidents Uribe in Colombia and Bolsonaro in Brazil, those who orchestrate processes for character assassination, and those who destroy the rule of law.

It is time for the peoples of the Americas and the world to know the names of the executioner-judges and hitmen of 21st-century socialism so they cease to be immune. By cutting off the operational arms, the crime will be curtailed.

*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy*

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».