“Right now we have no guarantees, no rights. We are all on provisional release.”

This article was first published on September 18, 2024 in lundimatin.

“You are breaking down the door of my house without any warrant, the door of my house.” Koddy Campos is a human rights defender from Caracas, known for his commitment to the LGBTIQ+ cause. In recent months he had thrown himself into the opposition’s election campaign led by María Corina Machado. On the night of 9 August, some forty masked police officers tried to break into his home. By filming the scene live on an Instagram account, Koddy and his boyfriend Leandro Villoria managed to make the officers leave after thirty minutes. Since that day they have been living in hiding, like thousands of other Venezuelans, some of whom are already desperately trying to flee the country.

On 28 July, Hugo Chávez’s birthday, Venezuela elected its new president. The results published by the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolás Maduro, candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), re-elected for a third term with 52% of the vote, against 43% for the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia. Glaring arithmetical inconsistencies and the absence of the polling-station tally sheets, however, left these results without credibility, all the more so as they were irregular under Venezuelan electoral law. For its part, thanks to a network of volunteers spread across the country, the opposition managed to keep more than 80% of the tally sheets (each bearing a CNE printout and a QR code at the bottom certifying its authenticity). They show a clear victory for the opposition candidate, with 67% of the vote. Accusations of electoral fraud, and even of a coup, sparked protests across the country the very next day, especially in the poorest areas, drawing a ruthless response from the Chavista government: 25 dead and nearly 200 injured in under forty-eight hours, along with the announcement that re-education centres would be built for protesters.

Since then, arrests and arbitrary detentions have followed one after another, on extremely serious charges such as incitement to hatred or terrorism. They fall on protesters, members of political parties, election witnesses, activists and journalists, but also on anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The regime does not act in the shadows; on the contrary, it openly claims its repression. It even has a name: “Operation Tun Tun”. Day and night, the Venezuelan National Police (PNV), often accompanied by civilians armed by the government (los colectivos) to do the “dirty work”, patrol, detain, check phones and, if need be, enter people’s homes. The toll is unprecedented in the country: more than 1,500 detentions in just a few weeks, on top of countless arbitrary arrests accompanied by extortion.

Day and night, the Venezuelan National Police (PNV), often accompanied by civilians armed by the government (los colectivos) to do the “dirty work”, patrol, detain, check phones and, if need be, enter people’s homes.

According to criminal lawyer Joel García, the rights of the defence are simply ignored: “People who are arrested have no right to a private lawyer. Nor the right to contact a relative. That also applies to teenagers, and a great many of them are being held.” He adds: “Families have asked me for legal assistance, but I have been prevented from giving it. Right now we have no guarantees, no rights. They are arresting everyone, not just activists. We are all on provisional release.”

Joel García has spent several years working on cases of arbitrary detention and torture of political opponents. Although he usually runs into a judicial wall, he makes a point of sending copies of every file he handles to the UN and to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has been investigating crimes against humanity in Venezuela since 2018.

On the information front, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has lost count of attacks on press freedom since 28 July. “Only the CNE’s results may be mentioned; any reference to the opposition’s results is seen by the executive as a failure to recognise the institutions,” says a radio journalist in Caracas (who prefers to remain anonymous), before continuing: “There are even journalists today accused of terrorism simply for covering the elections.” Social media, the last space of freedom, are facing a fierce campaign of blocking: X, for example, can only be accessed with a VPN.

“There are even journalists today accused of terrorism simply for covering the elections.”

President Nicolás Maduro denounces a coup by the opposition, but the only two external observers of the vote show exactly the opposite. Invited by the CNE itself, the Carter Center mission, made up of 17 people from 11 countries, observed the Venezuelan election for a full month in Caracas, Barinas, Valencia and Maracaibo. It found an election campaign skewed in the government’s favour, a partial CNE, the arbitrary rejection of the opposition’s main candidacy (María Corina Machado), the persecution of people or businesses that had provided services to the opposition (hotels being closed down, for example), Venezuelans abroad deprived of their right to vote (nearly 8 million people have fled the country since 2013), the CNE’s refusal to present the actual tally sheets it necessarily holds, and more. “I have never seen elections with such a level of irregularities anywhere in Latin America,” the NGO’s director declared. The UN panel of four electoral experts reached a similar conclusion, stating that “the basic transparency and integrity measures that are essential to holding credible elections were not respected”. According to the international organisation, publishing election results without a breakdown has no precedent in contemporary democratic elections.

“I have never seen elections with such a level of irregularities anywhere in Latin America,” the NGO’s director declared.

Since 28 July, the list of human rights violations in Venezuela has grown longer every day, as have the speeches and intimidation measures aimed at keeping the population afraid and encouraging people to inform on one another. In the conclusion of its statement of 15 August 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) does not hesitate to speak of “state terrorism”: “The practices of state terrorism perpetrated by the current regime are not only directed against specific sectors but generate a climate of fear and intimidation throughout the Venezuelan population. These are practices that deny the right to political participation, in a context in which all oversight bodies are part of the state’s repressive apparatus and in which the right to judicial protection does not exist. The IACHR calls on the entire inter-American community to recognise the seriousness of this situation.”

“The practices of state terrorism perpetrated by the current regime are not only directed against specific sectors but generate a climate of fear and intimidation throughout the Venezuelan population.”

Apart from Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras, no other country in the region has so far recognised the victory of Nicolás Maduro, whose current term ends on 10 January.