A UN fact-finding team stated on Tuesday that Venezuela is seeing “unprecedented” repression, including the arbitrary use of authority, which is putting the country in serious human rights danger as Caracas intensifies its attempts to crush any dissent.
In the wake of opposition parties and the international community contesting President Nicolas Maduro’s reelection in July, protests have resulted in 192 injuries and 27 fatalities, along with almost 2,400 arrests, according to state sources.
As she presented the mission’s most recent report to a news conference, mission head Marta Valinas stated that the repression, which has reached “unprecedented levels of violence,” is “orchestrated by the highest civilian and military levels of government, including President Maduro.”
“Some of the human rights violations we have investigated during this period are a continuation of (acts) that we have previously described as crimes against humanity,” said Valinas.
The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission’s report states that the government of Venezuela has “dramatically intensified efforts to crush all peaceful opposition to its rule, plunging the nation into one of the most acute human rights crises in recent history.”
‘Arbitrary use of power’ – According to the expert mission, which Caracas declines to collaborate with, “the repressive response of the state” to the protests since July “marked a new stage in the deterioration of the rule of law”.
Undertakings that “were not the result of isolated or random acts but were committed as part of a coordinated plan to silence, discourage, and quash opposition to the government of President Maduro” were further described by Valinas in the study.
“We are witnessing an intensification of the state’s repressive machinery in response to what it perceives as critical views, opposition or dissent,” she stated.
UN Human Rights Council mission to investigate “extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment since 2014” led to increased UN monitoring of the nation in September 2019.Since then, the mission’s mandate has been extended twice: in 2020 and 2022.The investigation discovered that “the main public authorities abandoned all semblance of independence and openly deferred to the executive” .
“In practice, many judicial guarantees lost their effectiveness, leaving the citizenry helpless in the face of the arbitrary exercise of power.”The panel examined several case files, as well as other documentary and audiovisual sources, and conducted in-person or remote interviews with 383 individuals between September of last year and the end of this month.
“The repression not only continued to focus on silencing members of the political opposition, but also took on a massive and indiscriminate character, targeting all those who expressed their rejection or demanded transparency” of the vote, according to reports that followed the election results.
“The system of harassment and violent repression against real or perceived opponents was reactivated in an intense and accelerated manner” following the referendum, the mission concluded.
“Victims and a large part of the population are exposed to the arbitrary exercise of power, where arbitrary detention is systematically used, with serious violations of due process,” Francisco Cox, a mission specialist, stated.
Patricia Tappata, the mission’s fact-finding expert, continued, “The severity of the repression, the effort to demonstrate results through imprisonment, and the use of mistreatment and torture have instilled a climate of widespread fear among the population, further reducing civic space.”
While Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, Maduro’s competitor, has been recognized by Washington as the election’s victor, European Union nations have refused to acknowledge Maduro as the winner.
Urrutia, who was threatened with imprisonment in his native country, escaped to Spain a week ago and was granted asylum.
