Detained Venezuelan student loses vision in one eye due to ‘torture’, lawyer denounces

Venezuelan university student John Álvarez, arrested in August and accused of conspiracy and association to commit a crime, He has lost “the vision in his left eye,” His lawyer Joel García assured this Tuesday, who told EFE that the cause is the “torture of which he was a victim” by police officers.

(Also read: Photos: this is what the Tocorón prison looks like without the control of ‘El Niño Guerrero’)
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Through the social network right”.

According to García, the Anthropology student at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), the country’s main university, was “tortured” by officials from the Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions (DAET) of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB). body that arrested him on August 30.

NGOs, activists, family members and lawyers have denounced that Álvarez was “hit with a bat” and received “electric shocks”for which they have demanded that the Ombudsman’s Office activate the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, and that the Attorney General’s Office open an investigation.

(Read also: Interpol activates red alert for search and capture of ‘El Niño Guerrero’)

The UN Independent Mission for Venezuela assured last week that “serious human rights violations continue to be committed” in the Caribbean country, which have recently been carried out selectively against people from civil society.

In its new report, published on September 20, the mission documents between 2020 and 2023 at least nine deaths of opponents and civil society leaders related to repressive practices, 14 forced disappearances, 58 arbitrary detentions, 28 cases of torture and 19 of sexual and gender violence.

EFE