The spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, denounced on Tuesday (3) what she described as a “climate of fear” in Venezuela. The statement comes in the same week that the Venezuelan justice system issued an arrest warrant against the candidate of the opposition ticket to Nicolás Maduro in the July presidential elections, Edmundo González.
“We urge the government to ensure that all measures are taken in accordance with international human rights law with transparency and that steps are taken to resolve this dispute peacefully,” Shamdasani told a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
The spokesperson for the UN human rights office also stated that “people are being detained for expressing their right to political participation, their freedom of expression, their freedom of assembly.”
A mission sent by the office to Venezuela identified 23 deaths related to the repression of protests by police authorities. More than 2,400 protesters have been arrested in Venezuela since the elections in late July.
“It is particularly worrying that so many people are being detained, investigated or charged with incitement to hatred or under counter-terrorism legislation. Criminal law must never be used to unduly limit the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
This content was originally published in UN Office for Human Rights denounces “climate of fear” in Venezuela on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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