Last week, the High Commissioner of the United Nations (UN) presented a report that concludes that the Human Rights situation in Venezuela “has seriously deteriorated in recent months.”
The report details more arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances and torture, as a reaction by the Nicolás Maduro regime, to counteract the popular protests in the days following the thunderous electoral fraud of July 28, 2024.
We have witnessed how Venezuelan human rights and immigrant support organizations in New York, such as Venezuelan and Immigrants Aid (VIA), América Diversa, Aid for Aids and Venezolanos en Nueva York, with different visions about activism, have consistently denounced the increase in the civil liberties crisis in Venezuela during the last decade. All of these organizations have Venezuelan leaders who have experienced first-hand the excesses of a criminal regime.
Today there is the certainty that only through the diaspora, which already approaches 9 million people, can the reality that happens in the streets and towns of Venezuela be made visible.
Whoever subscribes to this article knows firsthand the brutal censorship of the media in Venezuela and the persecution of citizens, most of the time under situations that will never be documented by international organizations.
We are sure that thousands of cases of people who simply shared criticism or tried to join protests on social networks have received, without anyone knowing, the full weight of the Maduro regime. Particularly, in populations far from large cities, where the perverse hand of this repressive system acts with greater savagery and in silence.
I have no doubt that the UN report, timely, necessary and profound in its analysis, only describes the tip of the iceberg of a country without freedoms, which only has citizens and journalists who can make complaints from abroad.
The Venezuelan regime has progressively eliminated the independent press over the last 25 years. He closed television channels. The vast majority of newspapers that were a reference for research in Latin America disappeared. The media that currently circulate are nothing more than official spokespersons for a drug tyranny.
The repression has now also reached those who dare to criticize the regime on social platforms. Last April, a reporter for a digital media outlet, Mena Ramos, was arrested for reporting that simply described an increase in robberies in Caracas.
Today this communicator faces a 10-year sentence after being accused of terrorism. There are thousands of citizens like Mena.
Very soon, from New York and the main capitals of the world, a movement will begin to be built to make visible those who could die forgotten in Venezuelan torture centers, who, by the way, have also been ignored by those who call themselves opposition leaders.
Fernando Martínez is a journalist
The post From New York, the voice is raised for Venezuela appeared first on Veritas News.
