(Caracas) The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday “suspend the activities” of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the country and ordered the departure of its staff within 72 hours, after criticism of the detention of lawyer Rocio San Miguel.
“We regret this announcement and are evaluating the next actions to take. We continue to engage with authorities and other stakeholders. Our guiding principle has been and remains the promotion and protection of the human rights of the Venezuelan people,” responded OHCHR spokesperson in Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani.
The OHCHR, headed by Volker Türk, had previously expressed on the immediate release and respect for his right to defense.”
Minister Yvan Gil denounced the “inappropriate role that this institution has developed, which far from showing itself as an impartial entity, has led it to become the private office of putschists and terrorists who constantly plot against the country”.
According to him, the suspension will remain in force “until they publicly rectify before the international community their colonialist, abusive attitude which violates the Charter of the United Nations”. However, he assured that Venezuela “will continue to cooperate with the office of the High Commissioner in Geneva”.
The Venezuelan human rights NGO Provea estimated that this decision “increases the vulnerability of victims to abuse and attempts to prevent control by international bodies”.
PHOTO IVAN REYES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
The OHCHR, headed by Volker Türk, had expressed on the X network its “deep concern” after the detention of the lawyer “human rights activist” Rocio San Miguel, prosecuted for “terrorism”.
Mme San Miguel, of Venezuelan and Spanish nationality, is accused of “treason”, “terrorism” and “conspiracy”, because “directly linked” to an attack which aimed to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro, according to the Attorney General of Venezuela Tarek William Saab who on Tuesday castigated “a ferocious campaign waged from abroad against the Venezuelan justice and state”.
The European Union and the United States had also expressed their “concern” after the arrest on February 9 of the NGO director, specialist in military issues. Her ex-husband was also detained in this alleged conspiracy case for which 19 people were arrested.
OHCHR has had an office in Venezuela since 2019. Its main task is to “provide support for the effective implementation of the recommendations made” in the reports that the High Commissioner presents to the Human Rights Council.
Since 2019, there have been at least six reports on the situation in Venezuela and Volker Türk visited the country in January 2023, at the invitation of Caracas. He met with President Maduro and representatives of civil society denouncing “systematic violations”.
” Escalation ”
On Wednesday, members of NGOs demonstrated in Caracas in front of the OHCHR offices, shouting “Free Rocio”.
“Rocio San Miguel is detained as part of the Venezuelan state’s policy to criminalize civil society organizations and their members […]. We are witnessing an escalation in criminalization and repression,” lawyer Andrea Santacruz, of the NGO Civilis, told AFP, “certain that she is not involved in any illicit act.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body made up of 47 states, established, also in 2019, an independent fact-finding mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
In a report on Tuesday, the mission denounced a “wave of repression against opponents” which is intensifying in the country.
According to the president of the fact-finding mission, Marta Valinas, “these are not isolated incidents, but rather a series of events that appear to be part of a coordinated plan to silence critics and alleged opponents.
Francisco Cox, a member of the mission, argued that “the Venezuelan state has violated the human rights of dozens of people by investigating groups of alleged conspirators, depriving those investigated, detained and pursuit of the most basic rights.
He called for “full respect for human rights”, in particular with reference to “detentions and threats of detention […] of activists of the political party that won the opposition primary elections, and the disqualification of political leaders, including opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.”