CARACAS, Venezuela — The The UN Human Rights Office in Venezuela has partially resumed its activities in recent weeks, the head of the agency said Friday, months into the President’s administration Nicolas Maduro has expelled its staff from the country for allegedly helping coup plotters and terror groups.
The announcement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk came in a speech to representatives of the 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva, where he addressed deteriorating conditions in the South American country following July’s presidential elections. denounced.
Maduro and the political opposition both claim to have won the vote.
“I remain deeply concerned about the disproportionate use of force and violence during post-election protests in July and August, including by armed individuals supporting the government,” Türk said.
“Authorities have confirmed the detention of some 2,000 people since the elections,” he added. “I am deeply concerned that many of these people have been arbitrarily arrested, including adolescents and young adults, opposition figures, human rights defenders and journalists. and lawyers, but also bystanders.”
He also called for a “swift and effective investigation” into the killing of more than 20 people amid the unrest that followed. the elections of July 28.
The UN office in the Venezuelan capital Caracas was ordered to close in February amid increased concerns that the government would repress real or perceived opponents during an election year. The decision followed a wave of criticism inside and outside Venezuela over the detention of one prominent human rights lawyer and members of her family.
In 2019, Maduro’s government had agreed to work with the High Commissioner to establish the local technical consultancy firm.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil, in announcing the February decision, claimed that instead of improving human rights, the office with 13 employees had become “the private law firm of coup plotters and terrorist groups permanently plotting against the country.”
The authorities have not provided any evidence or reference to a specific example of such activity.
Türk told the city council on Friday that he hoped the office in Caracas could be fully operational soon. But Ambassador Alexander Yánez, Maduro’s representative in Geneva, suggested that Türk’s criticism of Venezuela’s human rights situation does not bode well for the local office.
“They are not doing anything to help this process,” Yánez said, adding that the comments amounted to “self-serving narratives from sectors of the fascist opposition” in Venezuela and that they threatened “the objectivity and impartiality, the independence of the work” to take. from the office.