Venezuela's Post-Election Crackdown Was Filled With Human Rights Abuses

The U.N. has documented killings, forced disappearances, and torture.

The United Nations (U.N.) has accused Nicolás Maduro's Venezuelan government of committing "gross human rights violations" in the wake of July's disputed presidential election. According to a report released Tuesday, the regime's security forces were responsible for killings, forced disappearances, and physical, psychological, and sexual torture. 

"The reactivation of the most violent mechanisms of the State's repressive apparatus led to serious human rights violations and crimes, in what constituted one of the country's most acute crises in recent years," the U.N.'s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission stated in its 161-page report.

According to the investigation, the crimes were "instigated by the highest civilian and military echelons of the state, including President Maduro." The mission confirmed that at least 25 people, including at least two minors, were killed in the post-election violence. At least a third of these killings were carried out by Maduro's security forces or by government-backed groups. 

Beyond the deaths, thousands of Venezuelans were injured, arbitrarily arrested, or forcibly disappeared. Many of the detentions occurred without warrants, and detainees were routinely denied access to legal representation. They were threatened with torture to force confessions to terrorism, treason, and other crimes. The torture methods include beatings, electric shocks to the genitals, suffocation with plastic bags, immersion in cold water, and sleep deprivation.  

Among the detainees were 158 minors (130 boys and 28 girls), many of whom were held without notifying their families. They too were subjected to threats and abuse. A 16-year-old boy who was beaten for a week, another boy was left with broken teeth and an immobilized hand, and two girls who were stripped and groped by security forces.

The crackdown follows July's election, in which the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner. The official vote count was never made public, but when the opposition released its own data, its numbers showed that Maduro had lost to opposition leader Edmundo González. Many countries, including the United States, have recognized González as the legitimate winner. 

While the government had already been suppressing dissent before the election, it escalated its efforts afterward under "Operation Tun Tun." Security forces were deployed to the homes of protesters and other government critics, marking the homes of suspected opponents with an "X." The authorities also encouraged citizens to report alleged opponents through a mobile app. Most of those detained simply expressed discontent with the election results. 

The report notes that its findings are just "a sample of a much larger universe" of crimes committed by the government, which, the investigators noted, extends well beyond this post-election crackdown.