REPORT Nº 22/07 1 PETITION 259-06 ADMISSIBILITY JOE LUIS CASTILLO GONZALEZ AND OTHERS VENEZUELA March 9, 2007 I. SUMMARY 1. On March 20, 2006, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or the “IACHR”) received a petition lodged by the Episcopal Human Rights Vicariat of Caracas and by CEJIL, the Center for Justice and International Law, (hereinafter “the petitioners”) representing Joe Luís Castillo González, Yelitze Moreno de Castillo, and Luís Cesar Castillo Moreno, in which it is alleged that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (hereinafter, “the State”, or “the Venezuelan State”) is responsible for the assassination of the human rights activist Joe Luís Castillo González and for acts of violence resulting in gunshot wounds to the members of the Castillo family identified above. 2. The petitioners maintain that the events that are the subject of this petition amount to violations of various provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter the “American Convention”): the right to life (Article 4), right to humane treatment (Article 5), right to a fair trial (Article 8), judicial protection (Article 25), and freedom of thought and expression (Article 13), all in relation to the general obligation enshrined in Article 1(1) of the above mentioned instrument. 3. At the date of this report, the State had lodged no observations regarding the admissibility of this petition. 4. Having studied the positions of the parties, the Commission concluded that it was competent to decide on the claim currently lodged by the alleged victims, and that the case was admissible in light of Articles 46 and 47 of the American Convention. Consequently, the Commission decided to notify the parties, to publish the present Admissibility Report, and to include it in its Annual Report. II. PROCESSING BY THE COMMISSION A. Petition 5. On March 20, 2006, the Commission received a petition lodged by the Episcopal Human Rights Vicariat of Caracas, and by CEJIL, the Center for Justice and International Law, in representation of Joe Luís Castillo González, Yelitze Moreno de Castillo, and Luís Cesar Castillo Moreno, and recorded it under case number P-259/06. 6. On May 2, 2006, the IACHR transmitted the pertinent parts of the said petition to the State in accordance with Article 30(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the IACHR, and gave a period of two months for the State to present its observations. 7. By the date of this report, the Commission had received no response from the State in relation to this petition. B. Precautionary Measures MC-619/03 1 Pursuant to Article 17(2)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission, Commissioner Freddy Gutiérrez, who is Venezuelan, did not participate in the deliberations or voting on this case. 1