Stephen Lendman :: ZNet :: September 25 2006
… Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Madura was prevented by airport officials from departing the US from JFK airport on a commercial flight on Saturday following the UN General Assembly meeting. He said officials demanded he surrender his ticket and boarding pass claiming his name was on a so-called “red list.” He was then illegally detained, taken to a small room and strip-searched despite his strong protests after having clearly identified who he was. He explained once he did, his treatment only got worse.
This was a clear Bush administration attempt at harassment and deliberate Gestapo-like thuggery as well as a gross violation of international protocol.
It was also an irrational act of retaliatory muscle-flexing by an administration losing control and reacting like a schoolyard hoodlum in response to President Hugo Chavez having had the courage to denounce George Bush’s corrupted neoliberal policies on a world stage at the UN and to publicly call the US president the devil everyone knows he is. The Foreign Minister told Venezuelan reporters police officers threatened to handcuff and beat him physically if he resisted. They then held him in detention for 90 minutes before he was released denying him at any time any outside contact or legal help. Read rest of article here
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