UN renews mandate for human rights mission in Venezuela

Human rights teams welcome two-year extension of UN mission, which Caracas condemns as ‘designed for interventionism’.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has renewed the mandate of its fact-finding mission in Venezuela, an initiative Caracas considers an aggressive device for interfering in home issues.

The mandate to increase the Worldwide Impartial Truth-Discovering Mission for Venezuela (FFM) for 2 extra years was accredited by 19 votes to 5 in opposition to and 23 abstentions throughout a Council session in Geneva on Friday.

The UN mission was first created in 2019 to look into alleged human rights violations within the nation.

These opposed had been Cuba, Bolivia, China, Eritrea and Venezuela itself, whose consultant to the Council, Ambassador Hector Fixed Rosales, dubbed the decision “hostile”.

Venezuelan International Minister Carlos Faria mentioned on Twitter that the FFM’s extension was “a brand new assault in opposition to Venezuela”.

The mission “is designed for interventionism and for the falsification of actuality. This fee is a political instrument for essentially the most brazen defamation on problems with human rights“, he added.

In September, the mission’s third report discovered that state intelligence companies beneath President Nicolas Maduro’s helm had suppressed the opposition by arbitrary detentions and torture that amounted to crimes in opposition to humanity.

The intelligence companies “made use of sexual and gender-based violence to torture and humiliate their detainees” since a minimum of 2014 and “the violations and crimes … proceed to at the present time”, the report mentioned.

The Venezuelan authorities responded that the report’s accusations had been “false and unfounded”.

Venezuela is a “democratic and social state, based mostly on the rule of legislation and justice, which is dedicated to the promotion, respect and safety of human rights”, the federal government mentioned.

Human rights teams welcomed the FFM’s extension.

The renewal is a “signal of help for the numerous victims of grave human rights violations which have been, and proceed to be, dedicated within the nation,” Amnesty Worldwide’s Americas Director Erika Guevara Rosas mentioned on Twitter.

Human Rights Watch known as the FFM’s extension “extraordinarily essential” and mentioned it performs “an early warning function within the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections”.