Hundreds of people gathered outside a detention center known as “Zone 7” in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, with bags full of food for the inmates inside. Many told similar stories of sons, daughters and siblings arrested on motorcycles, walking home from work, leaving a bakery or visiting a relative’s home in the days after Venezuela’s disputed presidential election. No one had been told what charges their relatives faced.
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“I have been documenting human rights violations in Venezuela for many years and have seen patterns of repression before,” said Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy and research organization. “I don’t think I have ever seen this ferocity.”
Nicolas Maduro, the country’s autocratic president, declared victory in the July 28 election, but the government has yet to provide any vote count to back up the announcement. The opposition published tallies showing its candidate had won in a landslide.
Now, experts say, Maduro, apparently repudiated by most of his voters, is bent on punishing those he considers disloyal.
The government says it has arrested more than 2,000 people for protesting the election results. People were taken in raids amid the protests and then from their homes in targeted arrests as the government launched what it called “Operation Tun Tun,” relatives said.
“Maximum punishment! Justice!” Maduro said at a rally this month. “This time there will be no forgiveness!”
At least two human rights lawyers are in prison. Another activist was taken from Caracas airport as she tried to leave the country. When authorities showed up at the home of Maria Oropeza, leader of the opposition party in Portuguesa, she broadcast it live. “I think you should first show me if you have a search warrant, right?” she was heard telling a police officer.
Activists and journalists have learned in recent days that the government has revoked their passports, effectively trapping them. People are leaving their homes without their phones, fearing that authorities will stop them and check their messages for objectionable content. One man in Zulia was arrested after police found a meme critical of the election on his phone, his family said.
“It is difficult to put into words the intensity and indiscriminate nature of this wave of arrests,” said Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of Foro Penal, a human rights organization that tracks arrests.
On July 28, Maduro faced a diplomat named Edmundo González, a replacement for María Corina Machado, a more popular opposition leader who had been disqualified from running. About six hours after polls closed, the electoral council announced that Maduro had won another six-year term. Tallies compiled by opposition observers show that González won by millions of votes. Protests erupted the day after the vote, with some leading to clashes between protesters, security forces and armed civilian groups supporting the government. Human rights groups reported that at least two dozen people were killed. Hundreds were arrested.
But arrests continued for days, sometimes thanks to anonymous tipsters who reported protesters on VenApp, a government app originally created for public complaints. It has been removed from Google Play and the App Store but is still available to those who have downloaded it, Amnesty International said.
Maduro insisted those arrested had participated in a fascist plot to overthrow him. They will be charged with inciting hatred and terrorism, the government said. Some were caught committing acts of vandalism, but many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, civil rights lawyers said.
On August 8, the family of Américo De Grazia, 64, the leader of the opposition party, announced that he had been missing for more than 24 hours. His daughter, Maria De Grazia, 30, said the family learned he was in jail but said they were not told why. Activists hardly stood a chance against such an organized apparatus. “We go to war armed with a plastic fork,” Maria De Grazia said.
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