Monitor de Víctimas presents its campaign “No Green Light To Kill” - Runrun
Monitor de Víctimas presents its campaign “No Green Light To Kill”
An interactive simulator and a video that shows the pattern of the extrajudicial killings with the purposes of rescuing the respect for life, and of showing the consequences of police violence in Venezuela

Monitor de Víctimas carries on with the campaign #NoGreenLightToKill, now with two pieces in English, to continue informing and guiding about police violence and its dramatic consequences in Venezuela; especially among the young population of popular sectors.  

Since its creation in 2017, Monitor de Víctimas, a project of the digital media site Runrun.es and the organization Caracas Mi Convive, has promoted the defense of human rights in the media with the purpose of ceasing the normalization of violence in the Venezuelan society, and to emphasize the importance of respecting and valuing life. 

To accomplish this objective, Monitor de Víctimas’ team develops journalist works, analysis and reports. In 2020, the campaign #NoGreenLightToKill began with the intention of pointing out the pattern of police violence, and to ease the understanding of the risks of police brutality, while reaching audiences from different social groups, and denouncing extrajudicial killings’ in Venezuela.

This initiative uses diverse and innovative tools to recount  the events. The informative song told the story of an alleged case of resistance to authority, that according to family members of the victim had been executed. 

An interactive simulator that imitates a target to shoot at, and the citizens progressively discover the irregularities and violations of human rights that surround the majority of the policial procedures with deadly victims. All the information is based on findings and reports of the investigators of Monitor de Víctimas. 

And an animated video produced with illustrations, that describe the pattern of extrajudicial killings committed by the Fuerza de Acciones Especiales (FAES) in Venezuela. 

A context that demands actions 

The gathering of data about homicides in Caracas made by allied journalists of diverse digital media and community leaders shows that between 38% and 40% of these homicides are attributed to policemen and military personnel. 

In september 2020, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of the UN confirms the severity of the cases of police brutality in the country. It states that there are “reasonable motives” to believe that a considerable amount of civilian deaths by policemen between 2015 and 2020 can be considered extrajudicial killings. 

The same report concludes that these events can constitute crimes against humanity, furthermore it references some of the cases of extrajudicial killings committed by policemen and military personnel in the last five years, and describes patterns and practices that violate human rights. Moreover it reveals that some of the officials interviewed by the mission affirmed that the police had “green light to kill”.

The document, assembled by experts, highlights that there is “a certain level of public support to a severe approach towards violence. According to a study conducted in 2020 by the Observatorio Venezolano de la Violence, based on a in-person survey of 1.200 persons, more than 30% of the sample stated their support to extrajudicial killings as a mechanism to stop the insecurity; 12,9% claimed “highly agreeing” and 19,4% claimed “agreeing” that the Government has the right to kill delinquents.”

For this reason Monitor de Víctimas raises its voice to reject police violence with its campaign #NoGreenLightToKill. The idea is to continue circumventing governmental censorship and to open new spaces to visibilize extrajudicial killings’ victims, to show their stories, to listen to their families and denounce the pattern of irregularities committed by the security forces. 

International Amnistía Venezuela, Provea, Proiuris, Caleidoscopio Humano, El Pitazo, Crónica Uno and Tal Cual are some of the allies that accompany us in the diffusion of this initiative. 

On another note, to accomplish a goal of zero deaths by the hands of the police requires the adoption of good practices. The State security forces’ officials must RETOMAR one of their essential duties: protecting the citizens. FURTHERMORE, they must recede from a militaristic approach that makes them see people as enemies of war. The policemen should quit acting as executioners, pretending to have a higher power that allows them to decide who lives and who dies. Hence the importance in transparency and diffusion of events of police violence.

The pieces of the campaign #NoGreenLightToKill were created by Ricardo del Búfalo, Rolando Díaz and Ricardo Sanabria. The technological development and design was in charge of Héctor Rodríguez and the editorial coordination was made by Carmen Riera and Ronna Rísquez.

Click here to go to the video with illustrations

Click here to go to the simulator.