The Bachelet report is the name given from the press to reports presented between 2019 and 2022 by then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on the situation of the human rights in Venezuela, which was endorsed later by the United Nations Human Rights Council and opened the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela.
The United Nations Human Rights Council ordered an investigation, so its high commissioner, the former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, visited Venezuela between June 19 and 21, 2019 and made 558 interviews with victims and witnesses of human rights violations. [1]
After this Bachelet coordinated the writing of a report that consists of 18 pages [2] where the situation of human rights in Venezuela is described and analyzed, denouncing the extrajudicial execution of 6,800 people by State forces in Venezuela between January 2018 and May 2019 [3] and it is emphasized that especially since 2016 the presidency of Nicolás Maduro and the State institutions have put into practice a strategy "aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing the political opposition and those who criticize the government". [1]
After the presentation of the report, Bachelet declared that the events "must be thoroughly investigated, establishing responsibilities for their authors, and guaranteeing their non-repetition". [3]
The UN Human Rights Council endorsed the report that same year and the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela was opened. [4] The Maduro government responded that "the report presents a selective and openly biased view of the true human rights situation" in the country. [5]
Michelle Bachelet coordinated the update of the report, which was presented by Marta Valinas on behalf of the OHCHR [4] and which updated the human rights situation in the country and called for “free, clean, transparent and credible” elections. [6] The members of the UN Mission were not able to visit the country or meet with the political authorities on that occasion [4] The report was endorsed by the Council of Human Rights of the UN that same year.
Human rights violations perpetrated by the Venezuelan security forces against political opponents, the military and members of civil society are described and that the authorities knew of the murders, tortures and cruel treatment, sexual violence, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances that had occurred since 2014. According to the UN document, the FAES was the most lethal police institution in Venezuela, responsible 64.5% of the deaths that the Mission examined in 2019. [4] It was reported that Maduro government's security operations had murdered nearly 2,000 people between January and August 2020. [7]
It is also described that "one of the elements that contribute to the violations and crimes determined by the Mission is the lack of independence of the judicial power" and it was reported how some judges and prosecutors have been subject to criminal prosecution as a result of the decisions they have adopted. [4] The Argentine activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, criticized the report, calling it “partial". [6]
Between May 2021 and April 2022, Bachelet's team visited 21 detention centers in Venezuela, where 259 interviews were carried out with detainees, achieving the release of 68. Bachelet declared in the presentation of the report that situations of harassment were found in the country. censorship and confiscation of professional equipment, as well as the blocking of web portals, in addition to the use of anti-terrorist and organized crime legislation to prevent the work of human rights defenders and journalists. She denounced, in turn, that his team was no longer allowed to investigate the human rights of those detained in the El Helicoide and Boleita prisons. [8]
Michelle Bachelet declared in 2022 that her efforts led to the release of 68 people (14 women among them) and the dissolution of the Special Action Forces (FAES). [9]
The record of human rights in Venezuela has been criticized by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Concerns include attacks against journalists, political persecution, harassment of human rights defenders, poor prison conditions, torture, extrajudicial executions by death squads, and forced disappearances.
Foro Penal is a Venezuelan human rights organization that provides legal assistance pro bono to people subject of arbitrary detentions and their relatives. The organization is composed of regional coordinators for each state in Venezuela, pro bono lawyers on a national level and a network of over five thousand volunteers, non-lawyer activists, known as "active defensors".
Torture in Venezuela has been a consistent phenomenon throughout its history. Various dictatorships from the Spanish colonial era into the twentieth century utilized torture against common criminals and political opponents. In the twentieth century, torture was common during the dictatorships of Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Torture also took place occasionally during Venezuela's democratic period, particularly during social outbursts, such as during the Caracazo and the 1992 coup attempts.
The Venezuelan presidential crisis was a political crisis concerning the leadership and the legitimate president of Venezuela between 2019 and 2023, with the nation and the world divided in support for Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó.
Edgar José Zambrano Ramírez is a Venezuelan lawyer and politician that currently serves as a National Assembly deputy for the Lara state. From January 5, 2019 to January 5, 2020, he served as First Vice President of the Assembly. He was President of the Permanent Defense and Security Parliamentary Commission between 2016 and 2018. He is the vice president of the opposition political party Democratic Action.
The Local Committees for Supply and Production are food distribution committees promoted by the Venezuelan government in which the communities themselves supply and distribute the priority foods through a house-to-house delivery method. It was established in 2016 by President Nicolás Maduro in response to the shortages in Venezuela. The committees have been subject of complaints about corruption, political use, delays, poor food quality and price increases without prior warning. This service is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Popular Power for Food.
Venezuela Aid Live was a concert to benefit Venezuela in Cúcuta, Colombia, a city near the Venezuelan border, on 22 February 2019. The all-day concert, called Música por Venezuela: Ayuda y Libertad, was organized by Richard Branson and Bruno Ocampo, and featured over thirty of the best known Latin American artists from nine countries. The concert's slogan was, "Let the stars shine for all".
Rafael Ramón Acosta Arévalo was a Venezuelan military officer with the rank of corvette captain of the Venezuela Navy. Acosta Arévalo was victim of forced disappearance and tortured by agents of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) during his detention after being accused by the government of Nicolás Maduro of "conspiring to carry out an attempted coup d'état". Acosta Arévalo died as a result of injuries suffered after being tortured while in detention in the Military Hospital of the Army Dr. Vicente Salias Sanoja. The news of his death caused great impact in the media and the condemnation of both national and international authorities.
An investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to analyze possible crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela was opened in 2021. A preliminary examination was initially opened in 2006, and closed after concluding that the requirements to start an investigation had not been met. In February 2018, the ICC announced that it would open preliminary probes into alleged crimes against humanity performed by Venezuelan authorities since at least April 2017. In 2020, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC stated that it believed there was a "reasonable basis" to believe that "since at least April 2017, civilian authorities, members of the armed forces and pro-government individuals have committed the crimes against humanity", and on 2021 ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced the opening of an investigation regarding the situation in the country.
The following lists events in the year 2020 in Venezuela.
Operation Gideon was an unsuccessful attempt by the Active Coalition of the Venezuelan International Reserve, Venezuelan dissidents, and a private security firm, Jordan Goudreau's Silvercorp USA, to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and remove Nicolás Maduro from power. The plan executed from 3 to 4 May 2020 was for expatriate Venezuelan former military personnel living in Colombia to enter the country by boat at Macuto, take control of an airfield, capture Maduro and other high-level figures in his administration, and expel them from the country.
Alena Douhan of Belarus is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, as 25 March 2020. When appointed, she was a professor of International Law and the Director of the Peace Research Center at the Belarusian State University.
The 2019 Sacaba massacre occurred when Bolivian soldiers and police attacked and broke up a protest led by Bolivian coca growers at Huayllani in Sacaba municipality, Cochabamba on 15 November 2019. It came in the first week of the interim presidency of Jeanine Áñez. Marchers intended to enter the town of Sacaba and proceed to the departmental capital of Cochabamba to protest the ousting of Bolivian president Evo Morales, but were stopped by the police and military. During the afternoon, police and soldiers clashed with protesters, and eventually soldiers opened fire on the crowd. Eleven demonstrators were killed; an estimated ninety-eight people were wounded, including four journalists and eight members of the security forces. Two hundred twenty-three protesters were arrested, many of whom suffered mistreatment and at least nine of whom were tortured.
The La Vega raid was a police raid that occurred on 8 January 2021 in La Vega Parish, Caracas, Venezuela. The objective of the raid was to take control of La Vega Parish, which was controlled by a criminal organization, led by Leonardo José Polanco Angulo; he was a drug lord, known as "El Loco Leo". Members of the Venezuelan National Police (PNB), the Special Action Forces (FAES) and the Venezuelan National Guard seized control of the parish, killing a number of people in the neighborhood. According to investigative journalists and human rights organizations, the death toll was 23 people. By 11 January, no member of the Nicolás Maduro administration had made a statement about the events or announced a death toll.
The Special Action Forces is an elite command of the Venezuelan National Police created in April 2016. By 2019, it had around 1,300 officers. The FAES includes the Unidad de Operaciones Tácticas Especiales (UOTE) a police tactical unit. The FAES have been accused of being a political instrument of Nicolás Maduro, as well as being a death squad and of repressing the opposition.
Daniela Geraldine Figueredo Salazar was a Venezuelan young woman detained in a police cell in the Zamora municipality, Miranda state. Figueredo was killed while in state custody, shot by a police officer in the prison cell. The officer, Daniel Galarraga, has maintained that the death was accidental, but testimony from other inmates indicates that it occurred after Galarraga drew his service weapon to force her to have sexual relations with him. Galarraga was subsequently arrested and charged; the charges filed by the prosecution ruled out that it was an accidental shooting. National Assembly deputies, activists and human rights defenders denounced her killing.
Guarimba is a term colloquially used in Venezuela for a protest method primarily used by the Venezuelan opposition that involves erecting street barricades or roadblocks. Although the erection of barricades in Venezuela dates back decades, the term has gained relevance during protests against the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, when it has become a pejorative and stigmatizing term. Venezuelan officials have used the term to disqualify and criminalize the opposition or opposition demonstrations.
The International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is an observation body established in 2019 to study the human rights situation under the Bolivarian Revolution.
On 9 February 2024, Venezuelan activist Rocío San Miguel was detained at the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, near Caracas. Alongside her, two brothers, her ex-husband, and the father of her daughter were also detained. In response to the detention, international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have called for San Miguel's immediate and unconditional release, citing a precautionary measure of protection issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2012.
The 2024 Venezuelan protests broke out after the 2024 presidential election on 28 July, in response to voter fraud and other irregularities during the election cycle. The election and unrest occurred in the context of the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
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