Amnesty International warns about the human rights crisis in Venezuela

The Secretary General of Amnesty International (AI), Agnès Callamard, He denounced in an interview with EFE in Lisbon that Venezuela has gone from bad to worse when it comes to human rights. and that there has been no progress in the last decade.

Callamard stressed that his organization has “the same diagnosis” about the Latin American country than the one recently carried out by an independent expert mission, established by the UN Human Rights Council.

According to that mission, Venezuela has suffered one of the most serious human rights crises after the elections last July, in which Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed the winner in a controversial announcement, since the opposition rejects the result and has denounced fraud.

Callamard stressed that Amnesty International has carried out an “in-depth” investigation in the last five years and has found “evidence” of crimes against humanity committed in Venezuelan territory, “in particular politically motivated persecution.”

“We have found evidence of extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detentions, stigmatization of human rights defenders and arrests of people for dissenting from the authorities,” said Callamard, who noted that “in the post-election period repression has escalated” and has seen “a marked deterioration.”

In that sense, he recalled that some 2,000 people who were arrested after the elections are still detained, including several human rights activists.

Furthermore, “we know that at least 25 people have died due to the use of lethal force, including minors,” he added. We know that an anti-NGO law has been adopted; “that minors who remain in detention have been mistreated.”

This situation has also affected AI: «Our Amnesty International colleagues have had to leave, they have had to take many precautions to continue their work“Callamard said.

Against this backdrop, the group calls for “the unconditional release of those detained for the peaceful expression of their political or other views.”

«We must ask for an end to arbitrary detentions, we must demand accountability for everything that has happened…”, stressed the general secretary of AI.

Amnesty International on sanctions against Venezuela

Callamard opined that the sanctions regime against Venezuela “works moderately”, since during and after the pandemic, and throughout the war in Ukraine, “Venezuela and Venezuelan oil have become an interesting attraction, even for those who “They wanted to condemn Venezuela.”

“Therefore, this is one of those proactive human rights crises and it seems that there is no end in sight there either,” the activist concluded.