Venezuela has maintained a “repressive apparatus” responsible for illegal detentions and disappearances despite improvements in human rights since the United States detained longtime leader Nicolas Maduro, UN investigators said Wednesday.
After talks last month, the Venezuelan presidency announced the release of 131 political prisoners, though NGOs were only able to confirm around 80 releases and estimate over 300 remain detained.
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela said it had seen “a significant decline in long-term detentions and related enforced disappearances” since US forces swooped to seize Maduro on January 3. “Numerous laws used to criminalise dissent remain in force,” the mission said in a statement as it prepares to hand its report to the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.
And at least 19 officials are still in work despite being accused of violations, the investigators said.
It said no moves had been made to dismantle the “colectivos” — pro-government armed groups that the investigators called a “central component” of the state’s repressive apparatus. “The reduction in some of the harshest forms of repression is notable, but it does not yet amount in any way to a transformation of the system that made them possible,” said mission leader Sofia Macher. Macher said the improvement was “fragile and reversible”.
