Nicolás Maduro, declared re-elected by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) without presenting voting records, took a new step to make his dictatorship even more blatant with the construction of maximum security prisons for protesters detained in post-election protests.
“I have decided to create two maximum security prisons for all new generation gangs [como se refere aos venezuelanos críticos do regime] who are involved in guarimba [termo pejorativo usado pelo chavismo para chamar a oposição] and criminal attacks. And there is no forgiveness within the framework of the Constitution and the laws for this. Let’s make a bet to see if these prisons can be re-educated, and converted into productive spaces, so that they can produce and work […] There are many paths to follow,” announced the dictator.
The statement provoked harsh criticism from opponents of his regime on social media. Among them were Colombian politicians, who were the first to make connections between prison centers for re-education and Nazi concentration camps, where Jews and other communities considered “enemies of the German state” were taken during World War II.
One of the first to make the comparison was the director of the National Salvation Movement and former Colombian presidential candidate, Enrique Gómez Martínez, who described Maduro on his X profile as the “butcher of Caracas.”
“Narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro announces the creation of concentration camps in the best Nazi style. He uses the euphemism “new generation bands” to refer to the opposition. Does he intend to incarcerate and ‘re-educate’ more than 70% of the population that despises him? The butcher of Caracas has released himself with confidence after the letter of support for the dictatorship of Lula, Petro and Amlo,” said the former presidential candidate, citing the statement made by the three countries mentioned asking Maduro to release the voting records, after days of avoiding taking a position.
The new prisons announced by Hugo Chávez’s successor resemble those of communist regimes, such as Cuba and North Korea, countries that use this repressive strategy to combat opponents, in order to “reeducate” them according to the guidelines of the dictatorships.
Between 1964 and 1967, the Cuban dictatorship gave the Military Production Support Unit (UMAP) responsibility for managing these concentration camps.
The camp functioned like the Soviet gulags. All types of opposition to the regime were sent to these camps: politicians, religious figures and common criminals. There, the prisoners suffered mistreatment, hunger and isolation.
In China, the Communist Party that leads the country has already received several complaints about using detention centers to torture Uighur Muslims.
An article from the portal Daily Signallast year, exposed the violence suffered by the Uighur people at the hands of Chinese authorities through exclusive interviews with survivors of one of these prison camps run by Beijing. The allegations mention sterilization, torture with electric shocks, sexual assaults and brainwashing.
A similar reality is still seen today in North Korea, a country led by communist Kim Jong-un, which maintains forced labor and “ideological re-education” camps full of political prisoners, Christians and even children.
Opponents of the regime, who are severely persecuted in the secluded country on the Korean peninsula, face long working hours, permanent hunger, forced marriages and, according to reports from guards who later left these camps, the murder of babies, the result of rapes of prisoners, also occurred.
In February, South Korean news outlet Daily NK Reports reported that the communist regime had reopened a forced labor camp that had been closed since the 1980s.
As soon as he took over as the country’s supreme leader from his father in 2011, Jong-un authorized a series of arrests in the country. Many opponents of the dictatorship, including his uncle, were executed, while others were sent to labor camps.
International NGOs that monitor the situation on the Korean peninsula report that there is information that entire families are being held in these prisons.
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