9 of the alleged voluntary restraint in the exercise of the work of human rights defense is an aspect that should be examined in the context of the merits of a contentious case. 4.3. 30. as: Alleged “acts of criminalization carried out with the full acquiescence of the State” and other alleged acts of harassment against the beneficiaries That the representatives alluded to other acts of criminalization and harassment such (a) On July 5, 2005, the weekly publication “Los papeles de Mandinga” published an article, which inter alia referred to Liliana Ortega as “witness material” and said that she was in “the human rights business” and that she had been “living in luxury for almost 15 years by exploiting the anguish of the Sacudón victims.” (b) On September 21, 2005, at 2.00 p.m., a young man visited the COVAFIC offices asking about the “vision, mission, area of work, structure of the organization, [...] whether COFAVIC assigned vehicles to its staff, the number of offices and the distribution of the internal cubicles.” They indicated that “the Metropolitan Police agents who are on duty in the COFAVIC offices regularly return from their lunch hour at 2.30 p.m.”; (c) On September 28, 2005, at approximately 9.30 p.m., “when Liliana Ortega was driving home in her car [...] she was allegedly followed by a van [...] without lights”; (d) In the edition of May 9 to 15, 2006, the weekly publication “Los Papeles de Mandinga” indicated that “these groups of parasites, pimps, make a living by extracting money from the people with things like sexual diversity; they are just hypocrites. They have lied deliberately and repeatedly as is customary in charlatans such as Liliana Ortega and her accomplices”; (e) In its edition of July 18 to 24, 2006, the weekly publication “Los Papeles de Mandinga” indicated that “groups of criminals such as Liliana Ortega of COFAVIC [a woman owned by Andrés Mata]”, “demand” that the National Assembly heed them with regard to the law on the financing of non-governmental organizations. According to this bizarre criterion, [the] National Assembly should listen to thieves when it reforms the criminal code and to the Cali cartel when preparing an anti-drug law”; (f) On June 25, 2006, Liliana Ortega received an e-mail to her personal account stating: “we want to know if you are the daughter or a relative of Carlos Ortega9 […] deny this and prove it.” (g) The weekly publication “Los Papeles de Mandinga” in its edition of August 1 to 7, 2006, indicated “that, for the nth time, riff-raff threaten to take Venezuela before international human rights courts. Liliana Ortega, Andrés Mata’s henchwoman, is involved in this, a woman who leads the life of a parasite and has been living on the commercialization of the anguish of the Sacudón victims for almost 20 years.”; 9 The representatives specified that “Carlos Ortega is a leader of the Workers’ Confederation of Venezuela, sentenced to over 15 years’ imprisonment for several offenses, including aiding and abetting the commission of a crime, and civil disobedience.” Cf. communication of the representatives, presented on October 10, 2006 (file on provisional measures, Tome VI, folio 1880).