Via AFP:
(AFP) – A US congressional panel passed a bill that would impose sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses against anti-government protesters in Venezuela.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s vote was met with applause from dozens of people who traveled to Washington from several US cities to pressure lawmakers, the White House, and the Organization of American States to take action against the crackdown.
Upon hearing news that sanctions against his country/regime will be debated in the U.S House of Representatives Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro dismissed the possibility:
“Now they’re going round with this stupid idea that they’re going to sanction us,” Maduro said late on Friday in a speech to ecologists
“It’s hardly worth responding to the stupid things the imperialist elites in the north do. They can keep their threats and stupidities,”
Protests in Venezuela began in February of this year and have since claimed the lives of 42 Venezuelans. Venezuela has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the watchdog group Human Rights watch who last week published a scathing condemnation of the government accusing the Venezuelan regime of torturing demonstrators.