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Independent U.N. human rights experts said in a new report Tuesday that their findings show Venezuela\u2019s government has intensified the use of \u201charshest and most violent\u201d tools<\/a><\/span> of repression following the disputed July presidential election.<\/p>\n The official results of the July 28 vote have been widely criticized as undemocratic, opaque and aimed to maintain President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a><\/span> in power.<\/p>\n In its report, the fact-finding mission on Venezuela, commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, denounced rights violations including arbitrary detentions, torture, and sexual and gender-based violence by the country\u2019s security forces that \u201ctaken as a whole, constitute the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDuring 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,\u201d said the experts in the report, which covered a one-year period<\/a><\/span> through Aug. 31.<\/p>\n The findings echo concerns from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken<\/a><\/span>, Human Rights Watch, and others about Venezuela and its democracy, including repression before and after the highly anticipated vote<\/a><\/span> and the subsequent flight into exile of Venezuela\u2019s opposition leader Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Marta Vali\u00f1as, head of the experts team, said that between July 29 and Aug. 6, Venezuelan authorities acknowledged they arrested more than 2,200 people.<\/p>\n \u201cOf these, we have confirmed the arrest of at least 158 children \u2014 some with disabilities,\u201d Vali\u00f1as told reporters at a news conference Tuesday in Geneva, noting that some had been accused of serious crimes, such as terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cThis phenomenon is something new and extremely worrying,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are facing a systematic, coordinated and deliberate repression by the Venezuelan government which responds to a conscious plan to silence any form of dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n Venezuela\u2019s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, said he won the election with 52% of the vote. But opposition supporters collected tally sheets from 80% of the nation\u2019s electronic voting machines, and said that indicated Gonz\u00e1lez had won the election \u2014 with twice as many votes as Maduro.<\/p>\n Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela\u2019s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, whose members are aligned with the ruling party, to audit the results. The high court reaffirmed his victory.<\/p>\n The independent experts, who do not represent the United Nations, comprise a fact-finding mission created in 2019. They have been reporting on rights violations \u2014 including alleged crimes against humanity \u2014 in Maduro\u2019s Venezuela<\/a><\/span> for years. This report, the fifth of its kind, decried the government\u2019s efforts to crush peaceful opposition to its rule.<\/p>\n The justice system \u2014 led by the Supreme Tribunal \u2014 \u201cis clearly subordinated\u201d to the interests of Maduro and his close allies and served as a \u201ckey instrument in its plan to repress all forms of political and social opposition,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n In the hours after Maduro was declared the winner, thousands of people took to the streets across Venezuela<\/a><\/span>. The protests were largely peaceful, but demonstrators also toppled statues of Maduro\u2019s predecessor<\/a><\/span>, the late Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, threw rocks at law enforcement officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.<\/p>\n Maduro\u2019s government responded to the demonstrations with full force, carrying out arbitrary detentions, prosecutions as well as a campaign that encourages people to report relatives, neighbors and other acquaintances who participated in the protests or cast doubt on the results.<\/p>\n Patricia Tappat\u00e1 Valdez, a member of the expert team, said it had verified that at least 143 arrests involved members of seven opposition parties, including 66 leaders of political movements.<\/p>\n \u201cPolitically motivated persecution is evident,\u201d she said. \u201cThese figures represent a level of repression that we have not seen since 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The independent experts said they compiled the report through interviews with 383 people and reviews of court case files and other documents while also acknowledging limits to their information-gathering in the post-election period.<\/p>\n The experts said their requests for information from Venezuelan authorities were \u201cignored\u201d despite appeals for cooperation from the rights council, which is made up of a rotating membership among 47 U.N. member countries.<\/p>\n – Jamey Keaten, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Independent U.N. human rights experts said in a new report Tuesday that their findings show Venezuela\u2019s government has intensified the use of \u201charshest and most violent\u201d tools of repression following the disputed July presidential election. The official results of the July 28 vote have been widely criticized as undemocratic, opaque and aimed to maintain President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in power.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/29a329a\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4692x3128+0+0\/resize\/1440x960!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F26%2F17%2Fb0329cbc224b824c93488ac138d5%2Fab3d9a3352514a73a9adc047fbc3200d","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8894,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8892\/revisions\/8894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n\n