The Venezuelan authorities should take immediate steps to halt widespread rights violations being perpetrated against the country’s people and work to resolve “this all-consuming crisis”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has said.
Bachelet’s appeal to the government of Nicolas Maduro comes ahead of her address to the Human Rights Council on Friday and follows her official visit to Venezuela from 19 to 21 June.
Her comments follow the publication of a new report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Venezuela, mandated by the Human Rights Council, in response to longstanding concerns by Member States.
The OHCHR report’s findings are based on more than 550 interviews with victims and witnesses of abuses and the deteriorating economic situation in Venezuela and eight other countries.
In addition to detailing how State institutions have been “steadily militarized” over the past decade, it states that civil and military forces have been allegedly responsible for “arbitrary detentions, ill-treatment and torture” of critics of the Government; sexual and gender-based violence in detention and “excessive use of force during demonstrations”.
Citing 66 deaths during protests between January and May 2019, of which 52 were attributable to government security forces, or pro-government armed civilian groups known as “colectivos”, OHCHR maintains that, as of 31 May 2019, 793 people remained in arbitrary detention, including 58 women.
