Nicolás Maduro used the state of emergency decreed by the arrival of covid-19 to intensify your population control, as documented Human Rights Watch in a report released this Thursday.
The organization held the Venezuelan government and its security forces responsible for alleged extrajudicial cases and disappearances for a short period. In addition to the imprisonment of opponents, prosecuting civilians in military courts and torturing political prisoners.
“They used the state of emergency put in place in response to COVID-19 as a pretext to intensify their control over the population. The lack of judicial independence contributed to impunity for their crimes. The judicial authorities have participated or been complicit in the abuses ”, he highlighted.
He recalled, in this regard, that the UN’s international independent fact-finding mission on Venezuela identified patterns of human rights violations and crimes part of a systematic and widespread conduct.
The NGO assured that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced last November your decision to formally open an investigation on the commission of possible crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela.
Venezuela in humanitarian emergency
HRW also recalled that Venezuela faces a severe humanitarian emergency with millions of people without access to health care or proper nutrition.
“Limited access to safe water in homes, health care centers and a vaccination plan affected by opacity may have contributed to the spread of covid-19,” said the report.
The organization pointed out that the European Union’s electoral observation mission in the local and regional elections of November 21 reported the arbitrary disqualification of some opponents and unequal access to the media.
Furthermore, the lack of judicial independence undermined the impartiality and transparency of the election. Concerns that persist include the abject conditions in the prisons, impunity for human rights violations and harassment of human rights defenders and independent media.
“The exodus of Venezuelans fleeing repression and the humanitarian emergency represents the greatest migratory crisis in the recent history of Latin America,” he reiterated.
Arbitrary arrests
In the HRW report it also says that the government has detained political opponents, removing them from possible races to be elected in elections.
He also highlighted that security agents and the security forces they have tortured several detainees and their relatives. And it highlights that the 2020 report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported cases of alleged torture and ill-treatment of those arrested.
Human Rights Watch also echoed the abuses reported during the fighting that broke out in March 2021 in Apure state between the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
“The operation reached the execution of at least four peasants, arbitrary arrests and the trial of civilians in military courts, as well as the torture of neighbors accused of collaborating with armed groups ”, he stressed.
He affirmed that mining is the main problem for the deforestation of the Venezuelan Amazon, after agriculture. He added a study by the NGO SOS Orinoco that assured that, after Maduro’s illegal declaration that in 2016 he created a special zone for mining in the north of the southern Bolívar state, more than 230,000 hectares of forest cover have been lost.