Human rights activist Rocío San Miguel detained in Venezuela

The lawyer, activist and security and defense expert Rocío San Miguel was detained on Friday night at the Maiquetía airport by intelligence officials when she was going to leave the country in the company of her daughter. Relatives and human rights organizations confirmed the arrest and this Sunday his whereabouts are still unknown, which is why they denounce that it is a new forced disappearance, a crime that the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations has documented as occurring regularly in Venezuela. United Nations and the Independent Fact Finding Mission.

So far this year, the Government of Venezuela has committed dozens of arrests and persecutions of both military and civilians, some of them close to the opposition candidate chosen in primaries María Corina Machado. Prosecutor Tarek William Saab, an ally of Nicolás Maduro, has denounced a series of alleged conspiracies to try to assassinate the president, attempts that would have been deactivated by intelligence agencies. According to some versions, the arrest would be linked to one of these cases, the so-called White Bracelet.

The Public Ministry reported in January on the issuance of arrest warrants against journalists and human rights defenders and that investigations into these alleged conspiracies are still underway, for which they have not yet presented evidence. A few weeks ago, the arrest warrants for journalist Sebastiana Barráez and activist Tamara Suju, both living outside Venezuela, were made public.

San Miguel, Venezuelan and Spanish, is director of the NGO Citizen Control that has been monitoring the situation of the Armed Forces in Venezuela for almost 20 years. But she is also one of the victims of the first practices of persecution, discrimination and restriction of freedoms in the times of Hugo Chávez. San Miguel worked at the National Border Council in 2004 and was fired for having signed in favor of holding a recall referendum against the former president based on the so-called Tascón List, an instrument used by Chavismo to filter loyalties within the State.

The lawyer took the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which granted precautionary measures to her and her daughter in 2012 as a result of the harassment and threats she began to receive for her work in Citizen Control, such as when she denounced the existence of military personnel. active members of the FANB registered as militants in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

In 2018 it obtained a favorable ruling that Venezuela has not complied with, so a week ago the IACHR summoned the State until May 6, 2024 to present a report on compliance with the ruling. “President Maduro, issue instructions for compliance with the sentence issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. “We have been waiting for justice, truth and reparation for almost 20 years,” San Miguel wrote on his social networks a few days ago. The activist was extremely critical of Maduro's decision to call a referendum on Essequibo – the territory disputed by Venezuela and Guyana – and warned that the measure put the region before a possible scenario of war, although she was in favor of going to vote. contrary to what the Government intended.

This new arrest once again raises alarms about authoritarianism in Venezuela. The Government of Nicolás Maduro is increasingly narrowing civic space, a hardening that occurs just after the opposition and Chavismo signed the Barbados agreements, in which they made commitments on democratic guarantees for the 2024 presidential elections. which the leader of Chavismo arrives with almost total rejection from the electorate, according to several surveys. Added to this is the discussion in the National Assembly of a law to restrict the functioning of civil society organizations.

Amnesty International and the ecosystem of local NGOs have demanded that the State report the whereabouts of San Miguel. But more than 15 days ago the three coordinators of Vente Venezuela, the party of María Corina Machado, detained as part of the investigations of these same alleged conspiracies, also appear as missing, since their defense has not obtained information about their place of detention or of his state.

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