The United Nations Human Rights Council has renewed the mandate of its fact-finding mission in Venezuela, an initiative Caracas considers an aggressive tool for interfering in domestic matters.
The mandate to extend the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission for Venezuela for two more years was approved by 19 votes to five against and 23 abstentions during a Council session in Geneva on Friday.
In September, the mission’s third report found that state intelligence agencies under President Nicolas Maduro’s helm had suppressed the opposition through arbitrary detentions and torture that amounted to crimes against humanity.
The intelligence agencies “made use of sexual and gender-based violence to torture and humiliate their detainees” since at least 2014 and “the violations and crimes … continue to this day,” the report said.
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