Venezuela: tortura sistemática como herramienta de represión

Item 2: ID with the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Venezuela.

27 June 2025

Oral statement by: Donovan Ortega

In Venezuela, torture is part of a systematic pattern of state repression against persons arbitrarily detained for political reasons or for their work in the defense of human rights. According to information from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and civil society organisations, at least 900 people remain deprived of their liberty for political reasons.

These people are victims of enforced disappearance, trials without legal guarantees, extended periods of incommunicado detention and isolation, absence of medical care even when experiencing serious health issues, inadequate food, and severe restrictions on direct contact with their families and lawyers.

Civil society organisations and relatives of persons deprived of liberty have denounced systematic practices of physical, psychological and sexual torture at the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service in Caracas — known as El Helicoide — and other prisons such as Rodeo I.

We urge this honourable Council to demand that the Venezuelan State release all persons deprived of liberty for political reasons or for their work in defending human rights, and to take urgent measures to end these violations, guaranteeing their integrity, defence, urgent monitoring of their health condition, and immediate contact with their families.

Thank you.