The Venezuelan opposition denounced that the Maduro regime had committed more than 500 extrajudicial executions in 2020

The Venezuelan opposition presented a report on the human rights situation in the Caribbean country in 2020 on Monday, in which he denounces that the Special Action Forces (FAES), an organ of the Maduro regime whose dissolution has been requested by the UN, have committed more than 500 extrajudicial executions.

The report, prepared by the Commission on Human Rights and Attention to Victims appointed by Interim President Juan Guaidó, indicates that it was able to confirm “Statistics of extrajudicial executions by the FAES equivalent to 400 identified victims and 125 others unidentified“.

“This is in addition to the more than 2,500 registered at the national level by Ms. Michelle Bachelet of the Office of the High Commissioner (UN Human Rights). We were able to conclude that there is a pattern of executions that particularly affects young men with limited resources due to the militarization of citizen security, ”he said.

The report adds that they observed “that the victims arbitrarily executed in 2020 were in their all young men, usually at least 50 years old, from low-income families and living in lower-income neighborhoods with high crime rates“.

Further, they claim that “all extrajudicial killings were justified in the official versions, ensuring that the deaths occurred in the context of allegations of” confrontations with antisocials “or” resistance to authority “.

They also documented 232 “identified arbitrary detentions” in 2020, in addition to hearing “news” of 106 other cases of people who were also arrested.. “However, the latter were excluded from the total count because they could not be fully identified,” adds the report.

Of them, 134 were members of civil society, 42 press workers, 23 health professionals, 14 human rights defenders, 11 members of Guaidó’s “and close” team, four deputies and political leaders and four officials of the ‘State..

In this practice, indicates the report of the opposition, “various state security organs, frequently attached” to the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB, militarized police), to the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), to the Service. National Bolivarian Intelligence (Sebin) participated. FAES. “It is important to stress that a large number of arbitrary detentions have been committed in the context of peaceful protests,” the document concludes.

The UN, for its part, reported in mid-May that the practices continue into 2021.

This group, created in 2019, determined last September that the authorities and security forces of the Nicolás Maduro regime had committed serious human rights violations and even crimes against humanity since 2014.

The entity has continued its work since then and indicated that it had identified “more than 200 murders committed by the police since the beginning of the year“.

Regarding extrajudicial killings, Valiñas cited examples such as the police operation that was carried out in January in the Caracas neighborhood of La Vega, “one of the deadliest to date”. in which 650 FAES members participated and where several of the reported killings took place.

In her report on the Venezuelan crisis, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for the dissolution of the Special Action Forces, considered by the United States to be a terrorist group.

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