The Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights (Provea), a non-governmental organization, stated in a report published on Tuesday that it has so far confirmed 24 people killed under the brutal repression of the socialist government there.
Nationwide protests erupted in Venezuela after the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolás Maduro the “winner” of the July 28 sham presidential election. Although Venezuela’s top electoral authorities moved to rapidly certify Maduro’s “victory” less than 24 hours after polls closed, they have refused to publish vote tallies and scrutiny documents that can prove Maduro obtained the roughly 51 percent of the votes the CNE claims he got.
The Venezuelan opposition has contested CNE’s “results,” publishing vote tallies allegedly obtained from voting stations throughout the country on July 28 that, they claim, can demonstrate their candidate, 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González, defeated Maduro by a landslide.
Several countries, including the United States, have called the CNE’s claimed results into question and recognized González as the winner of the sham election.
Maduro — who has illegitimately clung to power in multiple unfree elections — has only been congratulated by other allied rogue regimes such as China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, as well as by nations that have maintained friendly ties with the ruling socialists over the past 25 years such as Dominica, Honduras, and Antigua and Barbuda.
Maduro and his authoritarian socialist regime have responded to the protests with a fierce persecution campaign against dissidents. Maduro said last week that his regime’s security officials have detained over 2,000 dissidents and promised to send them to “reeducation” centers that the socialist regime is building on the grounds of two of Venezuela’s most infamous prisons, which were emptied of their inmates by Venezuelan security forces in late 2023.
Provea noted in the report that most of the documented protests have taken place in barrios and other low-income areas of Caracas and other cities of the country.
“Provea has recorded 24 deaths between Sunday, July 28 and Monday, August 5 in events and protests related to the July 28 elections,” the NGO’s report stated.
Provea said that the colectivos, armed socialist gangs at the service of Maduro, were involved in at least nine of the registered homicides, citing eyewitnesses. In addition to the colectivos, Provea stated, the Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions (DAET) of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) has been identified as responsible in two cases of assassination of protesters.
“The participation of these groups in open coordination with law enforcement agents in suppressing demonstrations, attacks on polling stations on election day and acts of threats and harassment against opponents has been widely documented,” the report reads.
Similarly, the National Union of Press Workers of Venezuela (SNTP) denounced on Wednesday that the Maduro regime has carried out the arbitrary detention of four journalists and graphic reporters, who are now facing “terrorism” charges for having covered the protests.
The Maduro regime has also used its smartphone applications and regime-developed social media platforms to hunt down dissidents, in addition to relaunching Operation Tun Tun (“Knock Knock”), a persecution campaign that hunts down dissidents in their homes, forcing them to “confess” their “crimes” and issue “public apologies” to Maduro.
Maduro claims that the protests against his regime are part of a purported “international Zionism” plot to overthrow his authoritarian rule. The socialist dictator has accused several regional heads of state – such as Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, Chile’s Gabriel Boric, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa – as well as former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Spain’s populist Vox party – of all taking part in the “Zionist” plot against him.
Foro Penal, another Venezuelan non-governmental organization, announced on Thursday morning that it has been able to confirm and identify 1,229 individuals arbitrarily detained by Maduro regime forces during the protests. Out of the total confirmed, Foro Penal explained, 105 are teenagers, five are indigenous people, 16 are disabled, and 157 are women.
Foro Penal’s president, Alfredo Romero, told the Argentine outlet Infobae on Wednesday that most of the detainees are young people, who average 20 years of age.
“The regular pattern, let’s say new, that occurred with regard to these indiscriminate detentions, is the restriction of the right to defense,” Romero said. “Private defense is not allowed. They are imposed on them by the State Defender and the hearings are conducted with the persons locked up in the detention centers, mostly without allowing the detainee access to any communication with the outside.”
“There is also no communication with family members. This has not allowed them, obviously, to know the physical state or the health condition of the person because they have not been seen, we have not talked to them, we have not been able to verify it,” he continued. “Including minors who have also not had, for the most part, the possibility for family members to talk to them and see them.”
Provea concluded its report by denouncing that it had begun to receive reports of acts of harassment, dismissals, and job demotions of public administration employees for political reasons.
“These acts, which, we warn, could escalate in the coming days, have been recorded in other periods of high conflict and constitute crimes of discrimination for political reasons that violate the right to work and the right to personal integrity,” Provea stated.
“Denying people the human right to democracy, to electoral truth and repressing those who demand these basic principles, is a crime against human rights. Power and sovereignty reside in the people, who want guarantees that their decisions and political destiny will be respected,” the report concluded.
The Venezuelan Armed Forces, which have been at the forefront of the brutal repression against protesters and dissidents, together with the Venezuelan police forces, reiterated their “absolute loyalty” to Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday, claiming that he is the “constitutional president” of Venezuela and “commander in chief” of the armed forces.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.