A UN-backed panel investigating human rights violations in Venezuela said Wednesday the South American country’s government has intensified efforts to curtail democratic freedoms with threats, surveillance, and harassment as President Nicolás Maduro faces a re-election contest next year.
The international fact-finding mission authorized by the UN Human Rights Council said the government shifted tactics since the COVID-19 pandemic, which marked the end of mass opposition protests and subsequent extensive arrests and torture of demonstrators.
The three-member mission said at least five arbitrary executions, 14 short-term enforced disappearances, and 58 arbitrary detentions took place from January 2020 through August 2023. It also documented 28 cases of torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of detainees, of which 19 involved sexual and gender-based violence, during the same period.
The mission does not have judicial powers, but the evidence it has gathered could be used by the International Criminal Court or by any country that might apply “universal jurisdiction,” such as Argentina, to prosecute alleged crimes against humanity. The mission has previously decried “crimes against humanity” in Maduro’s Venezuela.
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