UN rights experts decry worsening repression in Venezuela in wake of contested election result
GENEVA — Independent UN human rights experts said in a new report on Tuesday that their findings show The Venezuelan government has intensified the use of the “most aggressive and violent” means of repression following the controversial presidential elections in July.
The official results of the July 28 election have been widely criticized as undemocratic, opaque and designed to uphold democracy. President Nicolas Maduro in power.
In its report, the fact-finding mission to Venezuela, mandated by the UN-backed Human Rights Council, condemned human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual and gender-based violence by the country’s security forces, which “taken as a whole amount to the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.”
“During the period covered by this report, and especially after the presidential elections of July 28, 2024, the State has reactivated and intensified the harshest and most violent mechanisms of its repressive apparatus,” the experts in the report, which covered a period of one year until August 31st.
The findings reflect the concerns of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US Secretary of State Antony BlinkenHuman Rights Watch and others on Venezuela and its democracy, including repression before and after the long-awaited vote and the subsequent flight to exile of Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, which is packed with Maduro loyalists, said he won with 52% of the vote. But opposition supporters collected tally sheets from 80% of the country’s electronic voting machines and said they showed González had won the election — with twice as many votes as Maduro.
Global condemnation of the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela’s Supreme Court, whose members are allied with the ruling party, to audit the results. The court upheld his victory.
The independent experts, who do not represent the United Nations, condemned the government’s efforts to suppress peaceful opposition to its rule.
The judicial system – led by the Supreme Court – “has clearly been subordinated” to the interests of Maduro and his closest allies and has served as a “key tool in his plan to suppress all forms of political and social opposition,” they wrote.
In the hours after Maduro was declared the winner, thousands of people gathered took to the streets across VenezuelaThe protests were largely peaceful, but the demonstrators toppled statues of Maduro’s predecessorthe late Hugo Chávez, threw stones at police officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.
Maduro’s government responded to the demonstrations with force, carrying out arbitrary arrests and prosecutions and launching a campaign to urge people to report family members, neighbors and other acquaintances who participated in the protests or questioned the results.
The independent experts said they compiled the report by interviewing 383 people and reviewing court cases and other documents. They also acknowledged that there were limitations in their information gathering in the post-election period.
The experts said their requests for information from Venezuelan authorities were “ignored” despite calls for cooperation from the human rights council, which has a rotating membership of 47 UN member states.
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Associated Press journalists Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.