UN receives reports alleging torture of detainees in Venezuela continues

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Vanessa BuschschlüterLatin America editor, News Online

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Relatives of detainees have been holding vigils outside detention centres to demand their release

Rports alleging that detainees have continued to be tortured in Venezuela following the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro by US forces in January are concerning, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, says.

Maduro has been replaced in power by one of his loyal allies, former Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez, under whose leadership an amnesty bill has been passed into law.

Türk welcomed the amnesty law but warned that “structural and systemic human rights concerns have persisted” in Venezuela despite Maduro’s ousting.

Venezuelan officials have not yet reacted publicly to Türk’s remarks but have in the past dismissed allegations of torture as politically motivated.

Türk said many Venezuelans remained in “arbitrary detention” despite the passing of the amnesty law last month.

He added that there was a child among those arbitrarily detained.

Last week, the Venezuelan parliament, which is dominated by Maduro loyalists, said that more than 7,700 people had been granted “full freedom” under the amnesty law. According to the parliament’s figures, the vast majority of them had not been in prisons but were subject to restrictions such as house arrest or parole.

However, Venezuelan prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal has so far only been able to confirm the release of fewer than 700 detainees.

Foro Penal also warns that more than 500 people remain behind bars for political reasons in Venezuela.

Noting the discrepancy with the government numbers, Türk has urged greater transparency from the Venezuelan authorities.

He told the UN Human Rights Council that his office had “requested the official list of those released, as well as unfettered access to several detention centres, so far without success”.

He also said that his office had received information about “the continued torture and mistreatment of detainees, including in the Rodeo 1 and Fuerte Guaicaipuro” detention centres.

Türk spoke just days after the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela updated the UN Human Rights Council on its latest findings in Venezuela.

The independent body said it had continued to receive “direct testimony, victim statements, information, documentation and reports regarding human rights violations committed after 3 January”.

The Fact-Finding Mission has in the past documented scores of cases in which detainees were subjected to “torture, sexual violence and/or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” in Venezuelan detention centres.

Venezuelan officials have dismissed previous reports by the Mission as “politicised” and “driven by perfidious interests”.

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