UN Mission Denounces Continued Repression in Venezuela
HAVANA TIMES – Political persecution is intensifying in Venezuela, and the only hope for victims to find justice lies with the international community, according to a report by a special mission of the United Nations Human Rights Council presented to the body on September 22nd.
The report reveals new evidence of harsh repression following the [stolen] July 28, 2024, presidential election and warns that political persecution—including against those who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms—has continued in 2025.
The electoral authority attributed victory in that contest to President Nicolás Maduro, who began a third six-year term in January, while the opposition presented electoral records showing opponent Edmundo González, exiled in Spain, had actually won by a 67%–30% margin.
Chilean lawyer Francisco Cox, a member of the mission, stated that “the detentions in 2025 continued against opponents or those perceived as such, just as in 2024, with arrests lacking legal basis or court order, often carried out by masked individuals without official identification.”
The mission’s investigation concluded that, of the 25 protest-related deaths on July 29 and 30, 2024, security forces were involved in at least 12.
In protests in the city of Maracay (north-central Venezuela), members of the Bolivarian National Guard and the Army’s 99th Brigade fired live rounds at demonstrators, killing six. One victim was shot with a shotgun from less than 10 meters away.
Portuguese jurist Marta Valiñas, president of the mission, said: “The Prosecutor’s Office has not publicly reported on the progress or conclusions of the investigations it claimed to have launched into these incidents, even though from the outset it asserted that security forces bore no responsibility for the deaths.”
On the contrary, prosecutors “pointed to the opposition as responsible. However, our investigation has revealed the opposite and, to date, all the deaths remain in impunity,” Valiñas affirmed.
The mission investigated the deaths in state custody of five people detained during the 2024 and 2025 protests.
In two of those cases, the mission found reasonable grounds to believe the State failed to act with due diligence, denying detainees timely and adequate medical care. These individuals were subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
“The State has a heightened obligation to guarantee the life, personal integrity, and safety of every person in its custody,” recalled human rights expert and mission member Patricia Tappatá.
She warned that “the deaths of people detained after the presidential elections due to the deterioration of their health in prison constitute arbitrary deprivations of life.”
In addition, “to the deaths themselves is added the mistreatment of families, the lack of investigation, the failure to apply international protocols, and the complicity of other institutions such as the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office,” Tappata said.
Authorities gradually released 2,006 of the 2,220 people detained in the post-election protests of 2024, but at the same time continued repression and selective arrests.
The mission documented at least 200 new arrests of critical voices, opponents, or those perceived as such, according to the report presented to the 47 member states of the Council in this Swiss city.
An unprecedented number of foreign nationals have been detained and kept in prolonged strict incommunicado detention, in violation of international law. This has amounted to enforced disappearances, some lasting more than six months, the report indicated.
The Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal counted 815 political prisoners in Venezuela as of September 15, of whom 170 were military personnel, 101 women, and four adolescents. Included were 89 foreigners, mostly Colombian, Spanish, and Italian nationals, or dual citizens.
The report also reveals that at least 220 children and adolescents aged 13 to 17 were detained within the pattern of repression following the July 2024 election.
During their detention, and without regard for their age or best interests, children were subjected to incommunicado confinement, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, acts of sexual violence, and due process violations. Four adolescents remain in custody, the report noted.
Security forces used plastic bags to suffocate detainees and beat them with fists, kicks, or bats, regardless of age or gender, according to the document.
Sexual torture was also carried out, including threats of rape and the application of electric shocks to the genitals. Courts ignored complaints of such acts, as did the Ombudsman’s Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which launched no investigations, the report added.
Cox said that “criminal cases continue to be fabricated, and the principles of a fair trial gravely violated with total impunity and judicial complicity.”
Valiñas concluded that “the crime of persecution based on political motives continues to be committed in Venezuela, without any national authority demonstrating a willingness to prevent, prosecute, or punish the serious human rights violations that constitute this international crime.”
“Given the subordination of the judiciary to the executive, the only hope of finding justice for victims in Venezuela rests with international bodies,” Cox added.
The International Criminal Court is conducting a preliminary investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Venezuelan authorities since 2014. Human rights violations since that year are also being studied by the mission established by the Council in September 2019.
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.