WASHINGTON (AN) — Violence against protesters and foes of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has reached “unprecedented” levels, with supporters and armed forces loyal to the authoritarian government using torture, sexual abuse and arrests to punish and repress dissent.
What’s new: A report by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday details how security forces aligned with Maduro have raided the homes of dozens of suspected critics of the government, often relying on “social media videos as the only evidence.”
Testimony gathered before and after the country’s disputed July 28 election, which returned Maduro to power for a third term, finds Venezuela facing what the council's independent international fact-finding mission calls “one of the most acute human rights crises in recent history.”
Speaking in Geneva, the head of the investigation, Marta Valiñas, said the report’s findings are “overwhelming.”
“Not only have there been no improvements, but the violations have intensified, reaching unprecedented levels of violence,” said Valinas, a human-rights activist from Portugal.
The probe has confirmed at least 24 people died from gunshot wounds while another “was beaten to death.”
What’s important: The investigation highlights a marked increase in state repression against critics of Maduro and his brutal and repressive regime.
The report, which looked at a one-year period through the end of August, said that “During the period covered by this report, and especially after the presidential election of July 28, 2024, the state reactivated and intensified the harshest and most violent mechanisms of its repressive apparatus.”
Francisco Cox Vial, a member of the fact-finding mission, says the violence is “a clear and deliberate” example of politically motivated persecution and the allegations “constitute crimes against humanity.”
What the probe found: More than 120 people were arrested in July during opposition campaign events. In the first week of protests following the elections, according to official figures, government forces detained more than 2,000 people, charging many with serious crimes, including terrorism and incitement to hatred.
More than 100 children, some with disabilities, were swept up in the government crackdown.
Says Cox Vial: “We documented more than 40 cases in which the security forces entered private homes without warrants, just using social media videos as the only evidence to arrest people who they thought had participated in protests or who had expressed criticism in social media."
Another fact-finder, Patricia Tappatá Valdez, says many detainees “were subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as sexual violence which was perpetrated against women and girls, but also against men with reported electric shocks, beating with blunt objects, suffocation with plastic bags, immersion in cold water and forced sleep deprivation.”
More than 140 of the arrests involved members of seven opposition parties, including 66 leaders of political movements, she said.
The background: Maduro’s victory announcement sparked widespread protests across the country, resulting in a violent crackdown on dissent.
Most of the victims were under 30 years old and one of those killed had been a member of Bolivarian National Guard, a branch of Venezuela’s national armed forces.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council is filled with members loyal to Maduro and says he won the election with 52% of the vote. Tally sheets collected by the opposition found that Edmundo Gonzalez – the opposition leader who fled Venezuela after the vote for his safety – won by a large margin.
