The United Nations Human Rights Council voted this Friday to renew the mandate for two more years of the Fact-Finding Mission in Venezuela, a resolution that has upset the Chavista Government. The observation force has denounced patterns of torture, arbitrary detentions and persecution of opponents or people considered opponents by the Government. In its most recent report, presented last month, it recorded the human rights violations that occurred within the framework of the protests against the results of the presidential elections of July 28, which include the imprisonment and torture of minors.
The resolution approved at the UN reviews the serious crisis and notes that a humanitarian emergency persists in Venezuela that has expelled almost eight million citizens from the country and for which at least 7.6 million people in the country require assistance for access to basic rights such as food and health. Also that the erosion of democratic freedoms has advanced and an example of this is that the number of political prisoners has increased sixfold in the post-electoral context.
The text calls on the country to immediately end all “acts of intimidation, attacks, harassment, surveillance, retaliation and public defamation against opposition leaders, peaceful protesters, journalists and other media workers, lawyers , human rights defenders, people who have participated in the electoral process, including as election observers, indigenous peoples and other civil society stakeholders and, in this regard, to also put an end to undue closures of media outlets and to human rights violations online.”
The Maduro Government has responded harshly. The Foreign Ministry stated in a statement that “this despicable mission is a clear example of the error of the institutions of the United Nations System.” The resolution was approved with 23 votes in favor and 6 against, including rejections from China and Cuba, main partners of the Government of Nicolás Maduro. In this renewal, the votes in favor exceeded the abstentions (18), which shows that concern about the worsening of the human rights crisis in Venezuela has taken on greater international significance. Activists consider it a triumph for the victims.
In the mission’s latest report, the experts warned that the Venezuelan State intensified its repressive apparatus and reactivated “a harsher and more violent modality” against opponents or dissidents after the presidential elections in July. The mission said that the Venezuelan authorities carried out “conscious and planned” actions to dismantle and demobilize the opposition, to inhibit the dissemination of independent information and critical opinions, as well as to prevent peaceful protests. The mission has been investigating violations and the persecution of dissidents in Venezuela since 2014 for five years and has concluded that crimes against humanity have been committed in the South American country.
The member countries of the UN Human Rights Council expressed their alarm “due to a worsening of violations and transgressions of human rights and an increase in restrictions on civic and democratic space,” among which they list “arbitrary detentions, which in some cases they may constitute forced disappearances, a disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officials and armed individuals called “collectives,” acts of intimidation, attacks, harassment, reprisals, among other things through the cancellation of passports.”
In addition to the mandate of the independent mission, the resolution calls for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue its work in the country. The 13 officials were expelled last February, in the context of the arbitrary detention of the lawyer and expert in security and defense issues Rocío San Miguel when she was about to board a flight at the Maiquetía airport. The renowned activist spent several hours missing until her judicial prosecution was confirmed, which raised alarms in the office through a tweet and the anger of the Government, which ordered the immediate departure of its staff. San Miguel remains imprisoned and without access to a defense she trusts, accused of being part of a conspiracy. The Maduro Government expelled the representatives of Völker Turk and accused them of being “a private law firm for a group of terrorists and coup plotters in Venezuela,” but last April, the Chavista leader expressed his intention to make peace with the UN and said that he would ask them to return, although the offer has not yet been finalized.
“We highlight that despite all the efforts made by the allies of the Government of Venezuela to delay, change and amend the resolution, these were declined, and it is an example of how important this resolution is for the Government. If it were not important, the Venezuelan Government would not have gone to so much trouble to try to change the resolution through its friendly countries,” highlighted the NGO Acceso a la Justicia. “What happened today demonstrates how the international community is attentive to the situation in Venezuela and how the victims have a way to be heard and a body that listens to them and documents their complaints.” The resolution also worsens, of course, the image of democratic guarantees in Venezuela, an international front that Maduro also has open with an investigation in the International Criminal Court, and which has conditioned the lifting of economic sanctions against the country.
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