The UN says that there are 191 arbitrarily detained in Venezuela

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said this Thursday at a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York that, according to his latest updated and verified figures, in Venezuela there is 191 people arrested arbitrarily.

Türk had just delivered his annual report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly and then offered journalists a brief overview of the places in the world with the greatest number of human rights violations.

Türk calls for the detainees to be released immediately

Although he did not include Venezuela in that exhibitionwas later asked about the country, and said that his office’s main cause of concern regarding Venezuela is arbitrary detention, and in this regard he put the number of Venezuelans arbitrarily detained to date at 191.

Türk expressed that (the detainees) “must be released immediately.” “And we must work to create an acceptable civic space,” in which freedoms of association, expression and assembly are respected.

He stated that although the Venezuelan authorities closed his office giving a period of 72 hours, “something unprecedented,” have remained in contact with local human rights defenderscivil society activists and also the authorities, suggesting that they have reliable information.

The High Commissioner’s figure seems conservative when compared to those managed by local NGOs: for example, Criminal Forumwhich tracks arbitrary arrests in the country, which brings the number of people considered political prisoners to 1,916.