UNHRC finds “gross human rights violations” in Venezuela, calls to renew fact-finding mission 

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday said it had found “gross human rights violations” which took place in Venezuela during the country’s electoral cycle, which saw authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro elected to a third term as president.

The report documented abuses perpetrated by the government, security forces, and civilian groups allied with Maduro, including arbitrary detentions, short-term enforced disappearances, torture and sexual abuse. 

The mission also counted 158 children (130 boys and 28 girls) who were detained in protests following the elections and charged with offenses such as terrorism. As of October 14, rights group Foro Penal has documented 1,936 political prisoners in Venezuela.

Days before it delivered its most recent report, on October 11, the UNHRC adopted a resolution to extend its fact-finding mission on Venezuela for two more years.

About the Fact Finding Mission

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was established by the UNHRC in September 2019 to “investigate extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment since 2014.”

The mandate of the mission was extended by the Council twice already, in 2020 and 2022. 

The Venezuelan government has refused to cooperate with the mission since its inception. Yet over the last five years, the mission has been instrumental in documenting human rights abuses committed by Venezuelan authorities and has played a central role in safeguarding evidence in the pursuit of truth and justice in the country.

This latest resolution to renew the mandate was presented by a group of regional governments – Argentina, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay and Uruguay – and requested the High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue monitoring the situation in Venezuela. 

The resolution was adopted by a vote of 23 to 6 with 18 abstentions, an increase in supportive votes compared to the last resolution in 2022. The countries who voted against the resolution were: Alegria, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Sudan and Vietnam. Brazil abstained.

Image source: UN Human Rights Council via X

The Mission’s most recent report

The most recent report is an extension of a report the mission submitted to the UNHRC in September. The report examined the period between September 1, 2023 and August 31, 2024 and observed a worsening of the human rights situation in Venezuela, especially after the July 28 election.

Violations of human rights in Venezuela intensified “reaching unprecedented levels of violence,” said chair of the mission Marta Valiñas when presenting the report.

According to the report, Maduro’s government has “reactivated and intensified the harshest and most violent mechanisms of its repressive apparatus” to silence dissent. 

In the wake of the July election, spontaneous protests broke out throughout the country in rejection to the government’s announcement of President Maduro’s re-election without publishing any detailed election results.

Protesters gathered outside the UN Office in Caracas after the July 28 election. Image credit: Isabella Lapadula

Venezuelan authorities admitted to arresting more than 2,200 people between July 29 to August 6. The report confirmed 25 deaths in this post electoral period.

The report confirmed the detention of 158 children (130 boys and 28 girls), some charged with serious offenses such as terrorism. Valiñas defined this “phenomenon” as “new and extremely worrying.

Arrests involved and were followed by serious violations of due process. Criminal proceedings against detainees in the post-election crisis “systematically failed to comply with minimum due process guarantees,” the report stated.  

The mission concluded that some of the violations documented “including arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence, as well as other violations committed in connection with them, taken as a whole, constitute the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.”

Reactions to the Renewal

The Venezuelan Government has always rejected the findings of the mission. Alexander Yánez, Venezuela’s representative to the UN, rejected the renewal of the “illegitimate” mission, calling it an “instrument of coercion and blackmail.”

Meanwhile, Edmundo González Urrutia –the opposition candidate widely considered to have won the July election, as per precinct level voting tabulations published online by the opposition– said that the decision is a “major step,” underlining that the mandate has been “key to documenting the serious human rights violations” affecting the country.

Amnesty International as well as other local human rights NGOs like the Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights (PROVEA) welcomed the renewal. 

The Americas director at Amnesty International Ana Piquer stated, “Amidst the relentless human rights crisis the people of Venezuela are enduring, the decision taken today by the Human Rights Council helps bring the attention of the world back to the suffering of victims and their rightful fight for justice.”