Interestingly Venezuela is listed as democratic country in this article. I suspect there are a lot of Venezuela people who would disagree with such statement.
Nils Melzer has severely criticised the USA for Gitmo, and also “cautiously” welcomed a British court’s refusal to expedite assigned the USA specifically on the grounds that the USA is likely to be much worse.
While Nils Melzer is critical of Assange’s treatment by U.K. authorities, the behaviour he criticised also includes the fact they were not willing to ignore him if he left his self imposed imprisonments in the embassy. Even with the most hostile interpretation I can manage (and I really don’t have a reason to like the U.K. government even before Johnson started doing Nixon impressions), Belmarsh prison, where Assange is currently being detained, is not even close to being on the list of the “Wests' most heinous of all torture chambers”.
Putin hasn't been removed - democratically or by violent coup - simply because he is popular with the people who have chosen to be ruled by him.
This doesn't align with the two minutes hate narrative that the West want to use in order to justify its direct interference in Russian democracy - in a sovereign country - so a lot of noise is made to occlude this fact and justify the usurpation of Russian politics.
In 2018 the CIA was again planning a coup, or disruption at least, revolving around the planned December 2018 elections. The Venezuelans got wind of this and bumped the elections up a few months. The CIA was caught flat footed somewhat, and the December plans went into effect early. The idea floated that the 2018 elections were rigged doesn't really fly. Even Trump didn't like the puppet the US was trying to push as the real head of Venezuela, Guaido. He called him the Beto O'Rourke of Venezuela.
> The CIA was involved in the failed 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela when the army took over and dissolved the parliament, temporarily.
Yes, but half of the country was out in the streets asking for his resignation at the same time, cannot deny that.
> The idea floated that the 2018 elections were rigged doesn't really fly.
Americans like to talk about voter oppression, what about armed guns rolling up to your voting center, firing guns into the air to scare voters away because they were losing or something.
I personally lived through that, cannot tell me it's a CIA psyop.
The VAST majority of people here are against the government, even people who were previously very pro-government, since at least 5 years ago.
Yet they somehow won the last couple elections... no one really believes those results.