The activist of dual Venezuelan and Spanish nationality leads the NGO Citizen Control, which has monitored the situation of the Armed Forces in Venezuela for almost two decades. The security expert denounces having been one of the first to suffer persecution, discrimination and restriction of freedoms during the Government of Hugo Chávez.
A living memory. On February 9, Venezuelan authorities arrested Rocío San Miguel, lawyer and human rights activist, when she was preparing to travel from Caracas to Miami with her daughter. The security expert was implicated in an alleged conspiracy to attack the life of President Nicolás Maduro. The arrest revived the specter of political persecution in Venezuela towards human rights organizations.
After confirmation of the arrest by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, who indicated that she was presented before the Second Counter-Terrorism Court of Caracas on Monday night, little was known about the activist. At that hearing, San Miguel did not have lawyers she trusted, according to his legal team in a statement.
This Monday, 10 days later, he received a visit from his daughter Miranda Díaz at the headquarters of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, Sebin. According to the testimony of her daughter, made public by lawyer Joel García through the social network X, San Miguel is “strengthened and very confident of her innocence.”
According to the lawyer, San Miguel insisted that “there is nothing that would implicate her in the crimes for which she and five close friends were detained after her arrest; four of them were later released on February 13 with measures that included the “prohibition of leaving the country” and “of speaking to the media.”
The Venezuelan Government accuses San Miguel of an alleged connection with a conspiracy that sought the assassination of President Nicolás Maduro and other high officials.
More than 200 non-governmental organizations demanded his immediate release and asked the international community to condemn the actions against San Miguel and his family. The United States Government also expressed concern and the statement led to the expulsion of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose staff had to leave the country in less than 72 hours.
“How do you explain that until now there are people saying about a forced disappearance? Everything is to muddy Venezuelan democracy. They lie and at the same time they commit crimes by telling those lies,” responded the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab.
Who is Rocío San Miguel?
After entering the public sector in 2000 in the Ministry of Infrastructure and then entering the Defense and Security sector. In 2004, San Miguel was fired from the National Border Council, a government entity, after she signed, along with other public employees, a petition to activate a referendum with the aim of limiting the mandate of then-President Hugo Chávez.
Hundreds of people stated that they were fired in the public sector between 2003 and 2004 after appearing on the so-called 'Tascón List', used by Chavismo to filter out those loyal to the State. Years later, Chávez urged managers and officials to “bury” that list, which had circulated widely on the Internet.
The Council provided high-level advice to coordinate public and social policy actions between different government entities at the borders.
In 2005 he founded the NGO Citizen Control, which was dedicated to monitoring human rights violations in Venezuela. The organization sought to exercise citizen oversight over security and defense matters in Venezuela, focusing on military activities.
In 2012, Rocío San Miguel and her daughter received precautionary measures from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights due to the harassment and threats they faced as a result of their work in Citizen Control, after denouncing the presence of active military members of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. FANB, registered as militants in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
In 2014, Rocío San Miguel was accused by Nicolás Maduro himself of being involved in what he described as “a military uprising.”
In 2018, Rocío San Miguel achieved a crucial legal victory, getting the IACHR to order the Venezuelan State to comply with the sentence in the 'Lista Tascón' case and setting the deadline until May 6, 2024 for it to present a compliance report.
“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 days before his arrest.
Under the direction of Rocío San Miguel, Citizen Control investigations uncovered a series of events such as torture, deaths and arbitrary detentions, among other irregularities, allegedly committed by the armed forces.
Inter-American Court requests the Venezuelan State to comply with the ruling in the “Lista Tascón” case and gives the government until May 6, 2024 to present a compliance report
This is the case of San Miguel Sosa and others Vs. Venezuela
We listen to the president of the…
— Rocío San Miguel (@rociosanmiguel) February 1, 2024
On January 22, Attorney General Saab revealed the existence of five alleged plots against the Maduro Government, which until that moment had resulted in the arrest of 32 individuals, including civilians and military personnel.
One of these alleged plans, known as 'White Bracelet', involved the arrest of retired army officer Ányelo Heredia on January 16 in a rural area of Táchira. According to Saab, San Miguel is mentioned within the alleged plans, and he explained that his function was to “report in real time on terrorist actions”, with the support of several journalists.
For Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of the non-governmental organization Foro Penal, the arrest of the activist has “a very precise purpose, which is to send a clear message to other non-governmental organizations” in an election year. “The government does not want organizations, journalists, or any type of entity that in some way shows what the dark corners of the country are, the negative things that are happening,” he concluded.
With AP and EFE
#Venezuela #Rocío #San #Miguel #arrest #alarm #international #community