A team tasked with investigating alleged violations in Venezuela said it had uncovered how members of intelligence services implemented orders by President Nicolás Maduro and others in a scheme to stifle opposition.
“In doing so, grave crimes and human rights violations are being committed, including acts of torture and sexual violence,” Marta Valiñas, chair of the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, said in a statement.
“President Nicolás Maduro, supported by other high-level authorities, stand out as the main architects in the design, implementation and maintenance of a machinery with the purpose of repressing dissent,” the report said.
The mission—which has never been granted access to Venezuela—based its findings on nearly 250 confidential interviews, as well as analysis of legal documents, and said it had documented 122 cases of victims who were subjected to torture, sexual violence and/or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment perpetrated by agents belonging to the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).
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