UN mission to Venezuela calls for not normalizing the crisis

Members of the UN Fact-Finding Mission for Venezuela asked the international community on Tuesday not to become tired or normalize what is happening in Venezuela, where – they added – we are experiencing the worst wave of repression and human rights crisis since 2019.

The body created by the Human Rights Council to monitor and document violations of fundamental rights in Venezuela presented its latest report at a press conference, in which He confirmed that abuses have intensified since the presidential elections of July 28 in order to silence any criticism and doubt that Nicolás Maduro was the winner.

Human rights expert and member of the Mission, Patricia Tappata, acknowledged that The government “responds with irony” to the sentences and international denunciations and that “it doesn’t seem to matter much” to him that it is characterized as a “dictatorship”, but that despite all this “we must not tire or stop saying what is happening.”

“This situation must not be normalised, nor must we give up on demanding justice or supporting those within the country, such as civil society organisations, human rights defenders and the victims themselves and the families of the victims who face threats and risks,” said the president of the Mission, Marta Valiñas, in statements to EFE.

UN mission to Venezuela calls for justice

The Mission believes that the main objective to be pursued, and its own, is to ensure that justice is done, that those responsible are held accountable for what they have done and that the victims receive compensation for the damage they have suffered.

“Mass and arbitrary arrests and acts of torture must cease immediately,” Valiñas urged.

The jurist Francisco Cox, also a member of the Mission, emphasized the importance of justice being done in Venezuela and He noted that the International Criminal Court “could be activated in this situation,” as could countries that apply universal jurisdiction.

On the risk that this new wave of pressure could cause a new wave of migration from Venezuela to other countries in the region, Cox said that for the moment there are no signs that point to that, but that this will depend on whether the current level of political repression and the humanitarian crisis that it has unleashed continue.

“All of these factors together can contribute to people fleeing the country,” said Valiñas, who said that in recent conversations with activists in Venezuela, they have mentioned the possibility of leaving the country if persecution continues or worsens.