had on the previous day ordered the provisional release of an individual who had been in pretrial detention for over two and a half years. On that same day, the President of Venezuela publicly referred to Judge Afiuni as a “bandit” and requested her arrest and conviction; b) On December 12, 2009, charges were filed against the Judge, and her arrest and pretrial detention were ordered. She was to be held at the National Women’s Correctional Institute (hereinafter “INOF,” according to its Spanish acronym), a prison where other persons that had been convicted by Judge Afiuni were held; c) Ms. Afiuni’s defense council asked the competent authorities to change the location of her custody to the offices of the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (hereinafter “DISIP,” according to its Spanish acronym) so that she would be provided with guarantees on her life and personal integrity.1 The judge in charge of the proceedings against her did not heed to this request, but ratified the INOF as the place of detention; d) On December 15, 2009, the Commission received communication signed by Ligia Bolívar Osuna, Jesús Ollavares, Carlos Nieto Palma, Héctor Faúndez Ledesma and Sandy Guevara Ojeda (hereinafter “the petitioners”) reporting the facts and asking that precautionary measures be granted. This communication was filed by the InterAmerican Commission under number MC-380-09. The petitioners asserted that the purpose of the above-described facts was to persecute the Judge in retaliation for her independent ruling and that the facts constituted a “serious threat to her life, physical integrity, liberty and personal safety.” Consequently, among other requests, they asked the Commission to guarantee the life and physical integrity of Ms. Afiuni and that she be kept separate from the convicts, especially from those imprisoned as a result of one of her court rulings; e) On December 17, 2009, the Commission asked the State to submit information within 10 days on the procedural situation of Judge Afiuni and the reasons for her arrest, the result of the request for her transfer to DISIP, and the measures taken to prevent her from being subject to retaliation at the hands of other inmates held at the INOF; f) On December 28, 2009 the State reported to the Commission, among other things:  That the proceedings brought against Judge Afiuni were in the investigative phase, and that the arrest had been ordered by the 50th Court of First Instance of Control Functions of the Criminal Judicial Circuit of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas;  That on December 21, 2009, the Attorney General’s Office made an ex officio visit to the INOF along with a medical examiner who performed a series of exams on Ms. Afiuni that verified her good health condition, and 1 According to Ms. Afiuni’s representatives, officers of the justice system in Venezuela who are arrested are held in places other than prisons in order to protect their lives and personal integrity from possible retaliation from other inmates in whose trials they took part. 2