Best & Worst of CPAC's Free Speech Ratings: Venezuela

Venezuela faces a crisis as Nicolas Maduro imposes an authoritarian dictatorship against the will of the Venezuelan people and persecutes political opponents and dissidents. The active prosecution of individuals who speak out against the Maduro regime earned Venezuela one of the worst ratings in CPAC's Freedom of Speech Ratings.

CPAC's ratings analyzed the case of Leopoldo López, an opposition politician and founder of the Popular Will party, who organized a rally at which he gave a speech condemning the corruption and disastrous economic policies of Nicolas Maduro. Later in the day, after López had left the rally, some of the rally-goers damaged property and clashed with police. López was held legally responsible for the crimes of the rally-goers. Venezuelan authorities charged López with public incitement to violence, association to commit crimes, arson and damage to public property. On September 10 2015 he was sentenced to 13 years 9 months in prison. In 2019, López was released to house arrest. The following year he escaped from Venezuela via the Spanish Embassy and travelled to Spain. Since 2025 Venezuela has been trying to get INTERPOL to arrest López, but he remains free in Spain.

Imprisonment for presenting forbidden ideas was rated in CPAC's Freedom of Speech Ratings at 20% if the country allows independent media and 10% if the country does not allow independent media. Venezuela does not allow independent media earning it one of the lowest scores of 10%.

Read the full brief here.

Not every case of imprisonment for speech gets widespread media attention. If you are aware of a case in which a person was imprisoned for speech and received a harsher sentence than the political prisoner who we feature in the scorecard, please send the details of the case to slaird@conservative.org. To meet our methodological criteria, the person must be 1) imprisoned or sentenced to prison for speech that would have been protected under the US first amendment, 2) a citizen of the country in which they are imprisoned, 3) received a sentence of imprisonment for at least one month OR were imprisoned without being sentenced for at least 3 months 4) not imprisoned for any actual crime during the same period for which they were sentenced for a speech crime. 

CPAC vehemently opposes the views of many of the political prisoners featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings. Political prisoners are featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings for the purpose of revealing the state of legal Freedom of Speech protection in their countries. Political prisoners are selected based on the objective facts of their cases; each selected prisoner is the person who received the harshest sentence in that country for speech that would have been protected by the US First Amendment. CPAC stands for the right to Freedom of Speech for everyone, even people whose views we vehemently oppose.