to protect and guarantee the human rights to life, safety and freedom of expression enshrined in Articles 4, 5 and 13 of the American Convention. f) The failure to observe the measures of protection ordered by the Court reveals the impunity and complicity of the State apparatus in the face of these attacks on journalists. It is a serious setback for the inter-American system that the impunity of domestic law is transferred to the international system for the protection of human rights. g) In its arguments, the State admits that there is a situation of lack of security in the center of Caracas and a reaction of the people against the media. “The acceptance by the agent of the State of Venezuela of what is called the justification for the attacks on the grounds of the political theory about what the role of the media in Venezuelan society should or should not be, and when he expressly said that the Government has had no alternative but to defend itself” (infra seventeenth having seen paragraph) should be noted. This represents an acknowledgement of a theory, and an acknowledgement of the acceptance of the theory of aggression against freedom of expression and Venezuelan journalists. h) “No social upheaval, no act of political agitation, no situation of generalized violence in society, not even war itself can justify the State lowering the standards of protection that human dignity requires. If this were not so, there would be no justification for the international law of human rights or international humanitarian law. The argument that there is social upheaval and that the attitude of one or other sector of society is rejected is not admissible to justify using the violence of angry mobs […] to attack defenseless journalists.” i) “It has not been possible to hold even one working meeting with either the State’s agent or officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any official of the State of Venezuela […].” The Court must conclude that the State of Venezuela has not complied with the provisional measures that it ordered, which is a very serious and unprecedented matter for the inter-American system for the protection of human rights that endangers the lives and safety of the journalists who are the beneficiaries of these protection measures. 17. The oral arguments of the State presented in the same public hearing, which are summarized as follows: a) “Generally there is a relationship of cause and effect. [One cannot] look at matters from the middle, in general [one must] look at them from their origin, etymologically speaking, and in the context or the circumstances in which they are taking place.” According to the principle that notorian non ellen probacione, well-known facts do not need to be proved. “Nationally and internationally, it is not necessary to prove that the State of Venezuela is experiencing a very exceptional situation […] that has had repercussions […] on economic, political and social life, on all the areas in which a country’s activities take place. No one is more interested in the protection of human rights that the State of Venezuela today; unquestionable and irrefutable proof of this is provided by the 1999 Constitution which incorporates and adopts in its text, […] the protection of the global human rights system, in accordance with the most modern legislations on the matter that exist in the world.”

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