A report published on Tuesday (17) by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela denounced a systematic plan by Nicolás Maduro’s regime to persecute the political opposition.
According to the document, the Chavista dictatorship – which remains in power after elections denounced as fraudulent – “has dramatically intensified its efforts to crush all peaceful opposition to its mandate, plunging the nation into one of the most serious human rights crises in recent history.”
The UN team analyzed the situation in the country between September 2023 and August 2024. During this period, “several violations, including crimes against humanity, due to politically motivated persecution” were identified.
According to investigators, the cases of violence against the opposition are far from being isolated acts on the part of the Chavista regime, but are part of “an ongoing and coordinated plan to silence, discourage and repress the opposition” in the country, where Nicolás Maduro has been in power for eleven years, since the death of Hugo Chávez.
Marta Valiñas, president of the UN International Mission, created in 2019 by the Human Rights Council, said that “we are witnessing an intensification of the state’s repressive apparatus in response to what the regime considers criticism, opposition or dissent.”
Investigators also confirmed that after the presidential elections of July 28, in which Maduro was declared the winner by the National Electoral Council (CNE) with 51.9% of the votes despite allegations of electoral fraud, there was a “new milestone in the deterioration of the rule of law” in Venezuela.
“Public authorities have abandoned all semblance of independence and, in practice, many judicial guarantees have lost their effectiveness, leaving citizens defenseless against the exercise of arbitrary power,” says an excerpt from the report.
In July alone, the mission recorded more than 120 people detained during the opposition campaign period.
With the official result released by the CNE, the population took to the streets in massive protests that, according to data from the authorities themselves, ended with more than 2,000 people arrested, including minors, who were accused by the regime of spreading “terrorism and hatred”.
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