UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC - Press conference: Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela

[Other language spoken]

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today and welcome to this press conference with the Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela.

With us here in Geneva are the three members of the Commission of the Fact Finding Mission.

We have the chair, Miss Marta Valenius.

To her right is Mr Francisco Cox and to my right is Miss Patricia Tabata.

The Mission will be sharing the findings of their latest report to you, which they'll be presenting to the which they're in the process of presenting to the Human Rights Council today.

As you know, the Fact Finding Mission was established in 2019 by the Human Rights Council to mandate to mandated to investigate violations of human rights committed in Venezuela since 2014.

So now the Chair, Miss Valenius, will make an opening statement followed by remarks from our fellow experts and then we'll open the floor to your questions.

[Other language spoken]

Good afternoon, distinguished members of the press and colleagues.

This morning we presented the 6th report of the Independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela before the Human Rights Council.

The text of the report, as well as a conference room paper containing the detailed conclusions of our investigations is available on our website.

Along with the conclusions, we provide 19 illustrative cases.

Our report covers the period from 1st of September 2024 to 31st of August 2025.

In this brief introduction to the press and before answering any questions you may have, we would like to highlight some of the most concerning aspects revealed by our investigations during the reporting period.

More than a year after the presidential elections of 28th of July 2024, we observed an intensification of state repression, increasing persecution against critical voices of the government and entrenched impunity.

Institutions responsible for the protection of human rights do not fulfil their mandate and do not meet the expectations of victims and the right to prompt justice.

The state repressive machinery continues to operate in a systematic, coordinated and deliberate manner, following a plan to silence critical or dissenting voices or those perceived to be opponents to the government.

This plan includes arbitrary detentions, deaths during protests and in detention, torture, enforced disappearances and sexual and gender based violence.

Our investigations have shown that state security forces were involved in at least 12 of the 25 deaths that occurred during the post electoral protests on 29 and 30th of July 2024.

Responsibility for these deaths is not being adequately investigated by the competent authorities, WHO, even before initiating an investigation, declared that state agents bore no responsibility and, without any evidence, blamed the opposition.

Our investigations revealed precisely the opposite.

So far, all these deaths remain incomplete.

Impunity.

[Other language spoken]

In addition to the death during the protest as a result of the repression by security forces, we have investigated the deaths of detainees under state custody.

5 people who were detained in connection with the post electoral protest of 2024 died while in state custody.

Three of them died in the prisons that the government had prepared to hold demonstrators in detention, Tokujito Prison in Aragua State and Tokoron Prison in Carabobo State.

The remaining two died in hospitals under state custody after being transferred from different police facilities when it was already too late and their lives could not be preserved.

Three of these people died due to the negligence of the competent authorities in addressing their physical health problems.

In one case, the person was transferred to a hospital only when he could breathe with the help of oxygen and died on the same day.

In these cases, state negligence constitutes in human cruel or degrading treatment.

In all cases, the authorities were aware of the detainees health problems which had been repeatedly reported by family members and even by other detainees in the detention centres.

The prison and judicial authorities, the Public Ministry and the Ombudsman Office failed to fulfil their obligation to protect the lives and physical integrity of these individuals.

In another case, the victim's mental health was seriously affected during the tension and by the different forms of ill treatment suffered.

After spending 15 days in isolation in a punishment cell, the victim took their own life upon returning to their cell.

Our report describes these punishment cells, which can measure as little as one square metre without light or ventilation.

In addition, our investigation revealed that three other people died after being released from detention due to the deterioration of their health while in custody.

Our report also identifies with great concern the cases of 43 people currently deprived of liberty whose health is at risk.

The authorities have a heightened obligation to protect the physical and mental health of detainees.

This includes improving the deplorable conditions of detentions currently prevailing in detention centres, particularly in relation to habitability.

Food, access to water and a gene are described in our report.

I would I would also like to refer to the case of enforces disappearances.

Our report reveals at least 13 cases of enforces disappearance, most of them short term.

These disappearances last in some cases hours or days, and in others weeks or months.

The longest disappearances recorded has lasted more than six months without the person being brought before judicial oversight, while his fate and whereabouts was being systematically denied to relatives, lawyers, and consular or diplomatic requests.

After the closing of the report, the mission has been able to verify additional 5 cases of enforced disappearing, bringing the total number of disappearances to 18, pending the verification of more information.

In several cases, particularly those involving foreign nationals, this number may be significantly higher.

Given the subordination of the judicial system to the government's, excuse me, to the government's repressive police against any critical or dissenting voice or those perceived as such, victims have no other choice but to turn to the international community to seek justice.

[Other language spoken]

As Marta just mentioned, institutions responsible for the protection of human rights in Venezuela do not function due to political pressure.

The judicial system subordinated to the executive branch fails to fulfil its responsibilities.

Not only are the most basic principles of Fair trial systematically violated, but judicial remedies and legal protections are also ineffective.

[Other language spoken]

It is a judicial remedy that, especially in our region, is essential for the safeguarding the liberty and integrity of detained persons, and it can save lives.

This remedy requires judicial authorities to locate the a person deprived of liberty, ascertain their fate and whereabouts, and present them before a court immediately.

However, judicial authorities, particularly after 28th of July 2024, have consciously chosen not to even consider the reception of these constitutional actions.

In at least 40 cases, the Mission has documented that the Avens corpus petitions filed by relatives and lawyers of detainees have not been officially received.

In several cases, the authorities dismissed them on formal grounds, something prohibited by both international and national law.

In other cases, the authorities argued excuses, such as that the petition had no had to be filed before other judicial authorities, usually in Caracas, even though victims had been detained elsewhere, or that the responsible judge was simply unavailable at the time.

In other instances, relatives of lawyers were simply and directly informed that there was an order not to accept Avaaz corpus petitions.

And the few exceptional cases in which the petitions were received, they were not processed.

In one case, after several days of attempting to submit the petition, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court accepted it in May.

To this day, almost five months later, the petition has not still been processed and no proactive action we service the detainees has been taken, They ask.

CORPUS is a mechanism designed to prevent, among other great violations, torture and enforced disappearance.

Other similar legal instruments, such as criminal suits before the Attorney General and the Ombudsman, are likewise not accepted or process processed.

Victims are left completely unprotected.

In this context, I would also like to refer to the large number of cases of detention under isolation and incommunicado regimes.

International law defines isolation as the absence of meaningful human contact for 24 hours or more, something that must be exceptional, used only as a last resort and for the shortest time possible.

Isolation lasting more than 15 days consecutive days is considered prolonged isolation, which is absolutely prohibited.

In our report, we have documented cases of isolation lasting 1521 and up to 30 days in punishment cells.

These could amount to acts of torture.

International standards established that no person should be placed in an incommunicado regime cut off from this outside world, particularly from familiar or legal counsel for more than a few days.

Venezuela law itself prohibits prohibits holding detainees incommunicado.

In our investigations, we have identified that the authorities systematically use incommunicado detention as a standard practise, starting from the moment of arrest.

During the period of detention, it is used as a form of punishment or retaliation.

We have documented more than 30 cases in which detainees were held incommunicado for months.

This we add more than 90 case to this.

I'm sorry.

We had more than 90 cases of foreign nationals, all held under a strict incommunicado detention.

In one case, the period of incommunicado detention lasted up to a year.

In other cases it lasted 36 and even 8 months.

Thank you, Patricia and Francisco.

Before we move on to your questions, I would like to share some considerations regarding one of the most concerning patterns we have identified since the post electoral repression of 2024.

The detention and I'll treatment of children and adolescents in violation of international and national standards.

Since 28th of July 2024, 220 children and adolescents have been detained without regard to their age or best interests, while the vest majority were released by December 2024, Although under precautionary measures for adolescents remained in detention until June 2025.

On 11th of June, one of these adolescence was released while the others remained detained.

After the closing date of our report in September, another adolescent was detained.

We are in the process of verifying this case.

Adolescent girls and to a lesser extent also boys, were subjected to serious acts and abuses of a sexual nature, including coercive transactional sex.

Girls visiting their relatives in prison have been subjected to sexual abuse such as forced nudity during searches and genital touching.

Adolescent boys on the other hand, have been the most affected by acts of torture and I'll treatment, including plastic bag asphyxiation and beatings on various parts of the body during interrogations, even after being released.

These children and adolescents live with the severe consequences of all these acts, suffering anxiety attacks, family and social isolation, and tendencies to self harm.

The need for psychosocial support is enormous.

We are now at your disposal to answer any questions you may have.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, everyone for those opening remarks.

Now we open the floor to questions.

Do we have any from the room?

And then we'll take a couple online.

If you could just please identify yourself in the media outlet that you work for.

[Other language spoken]

I am Antonio, brought up from the Spanish news agency FA.

My question is regarding your speech in the Human Rights Council this morning.

I think that you mentioned that the international accountability initiatives should proceed proceed more swiftly.

So if you can elaborate more on what are these initiatives and what other initiatives could could be taken by the international community regarding the situation in Venezuela?

[Other language spoken]

Well, there's two mechanisms since victims have no access to justice locally.

One is universal jurisdiction.

There are some countries, like Argentina, that have ongoing investigations.

Those should move swiftly.

The other is the situation before the International Criminal Court, respecting their procedures, their independence.

We believe that we should see movement in those accountability mechanisms.

It has taken, in our view, too long.

The documentation is there.

We do respect, of course, their procedures, their independence, but we believe victims can't wait.

[Other language spoken]

Now we'll go to a question online from from.

We'll take the first one from Asians France Press.

If you could just please say your name and for the record.

[Other language spoken]

Hi everybody.

Thank you for taking my question.

My name is Anyas Pedro.

I'm journalist with the ASP in Geneva.

I would like to to ask you about your appreciation of something which is more recent and what could be the implication for for the human rights situation in the country.

So I'm referring to the US deploying warships on the coast of Venezuela and carrying attacks on Venezuelan boats, alleging that they're carrying drugs and saying that the Venezuelan authorities are involved in this drug traffic.

So I would like to ask you how, if you have any information about that, if you will investigate that and how much that situation could deteriorate or not the human rights situation.

[Other language spoken]

These events are really recent, but of course we believe international law should be respected by all countries members of the UN.

But you can't use any kind of action by a third party to justify torture and forced disappearances, short term and forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, sexual and gender based crimes, or any of the violations that we have documented in that are occurring currently right now in Venezuela.

And no one should use others actions to as an excuse to violate human rights and committed crimes against humanity.

[Other language spoken]

We'll go to the next question.

Again, if you could please identify yourself in the media that you work for, please go ahead.

Thank you very much.

Gabriela Sotomayor, a UN correspondent of Proceso Mexico.

And I have a question, but regarding the, the, a judiciary in the United States asking, I mean to, to detain Maduro because of his involvement in in drug trafficking.

But my question is if your report, are you going to share your report, your findings with the judiciary in the USA to complete the the.

I the picture of what is happening in Venezuela, not only in in the in the part of the drug trafficking and the the the the things that Maduro is doing with it with his partners, but also a brave violations of human rights that could amount to crimes against humanity.

So if you're going to share this findings with the judiciary or if you plan to have a meeting with them or something like that, thank you so much.

[Other language spoken]

Well, our findings, as you know, are public of all, of all of our reports and, and I refer here also to our conference room papers which have very detailed information on specific cases and they have been taken into account by several judicial authorities in other countries.

So we hope that that will be the case as well.

Of course, we submit information and even sometimes further to what has been publicly shared with judicial authorities upon request and of course, in accordance with our own confidentiality standards.

So yes, I believe that our invest, our investigations, our conclusions are useful and valid to be taken into account in this or any other judicial process.

[Other language spoken]

We'll go to the next question online from Maria Alejandra.

[Other language spoken]

Alejandra Arista Geta, UN Correspondent for a Nationality.

The report that you presented today makes reference to foreign nationals who have been arbitrarily detained in Venezuela.

And you talk about 100 and 2000 and 50 foreign nationals of which around 84, I think you said this morning, we're still in prison.

And Spain made made reference to 20 spaniel Spanish nationals.

And although Colombia did not speak the it's, it's known that they have around 34 nationalists nationals in prison in Venezuela arbitrarily detained.

So my, my question would be if you could elaborate a little bit on this and, and what measures can governments take to address this practise that seems to be a bit like hostage taking.

Thank you very much.

Well, in the report and after we finish the report, we can't count 30 foreign people in gaol, no excuse me, 84 people from 30 different nationalities.

And in addition, you can consider that there are a lot of Venezuelans.

So we can we can count that there are 31 nationalities in prison because they are criticism to the government.

During the interactive dialogue, we receive a question about how is the how is the manner that we identify this mechanism and we as a mission.

We think that this is another mechanism to make extortions in this case to individuals keeping they are lives, they are integrity and they are freedom, but in addition is a mechanisms of pressure from the countries where they believe.

So this is one more, one more mechanisms of repression to expand, to expand terror without within the society living or visiting Venezuela.

[Other language spoken]

We'll take a one more question from online from Gabriella Sotomayor from Proceso.

Thank you for for taking my question.

My question is, you mentioned the, the detention of many, many people in Venezuela, but I want to refer to Edmundo Gonzalez, his the, the, the, the spouse of, of his daughter that he is in, in detention.

But I, I spoke with Mr Edmundo Gonzalez and he said that they don't know about where he say he, they, they have not access to, to, to him to visit his wife is really, Can you imagine?

So my question is, I mean, is this also kind of torture against families, not only prisoners, but only families, because not to know about your husband or your son or your brother, that could amount to also as torture or what?

What can can you say about this issue?

[Other language spoken]

Well, the situation of Mr Armando Gonzalez, son-in-law in in fact represents unfortunately, the situation of many Venezuelans, as you mentioned, many of those whose cases we've documented in detail, of individuals whose whereabouts are not known.

Exact date when they were detained sometimes is debated because the authorities present a different date.

Family and private lawyers don't have access to them.

These are all actions that actually form patterns that we have identified because they exist in many cases and we believe that these actions are deliberate by the state authorities in order not to not only to leave those particular individuals more vulnerable, defenceless and and also under extreme pressure.

I think besides of course, being clear violations of their rights of due process and right to be free from enforced disappearance from torture as well, but they also aim to spread fear, to intimidate other individuals who would maybe dare to also speak, be critical of the of the government and their families.

It is definitely in our view a strategy to silence all those critical voices, the family members or associates, friends who are around these individuals and in this way effect repression and, and and silence any of those critical voices.

So we believe this is extremely serious in terms of violations of human rights, but also it's impacts on what should be a free and democratic society, free from fear of being detained just for exercising their right to expression, freedom of association, etcetera.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, just to request, you know, I am in the car because I wanted to go to the, the press conference, but there's no parking space.

So I'm here.

So I, I, I only if, if you could after the, the, the press conference, if you could say something about the main issues of, I mean, the main findings in Spanish.

If you can record something in Spanish, I would appreciate it because you know, it's important for Latin America.

[Other language spoken]

We do have one more question online from FA, from Isabel Sacco.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, thank you very much.

Yes, I would like to know, Mrs Tabata, you said, I think you said before that there were 43 people still detained.

And this is what I had.

I, I just, I am asking to, to be sure that 4043 people are still detained and in the context of the investigations that you have done.

And I would like to know in any case, what is the profile of the people that are still in gaol?

And are they especially opponents, human rights defenders, activists or are people randomly detained with because they were in the bad place at the bad time or because they participated in protest?

[Other language spoken]

And excuse me, but following on what you said on the foreign people detain, what is, is it a little bit the same questions in the sense of what are the, the profile of of these foreign people who more or less to have an idea in what context they they were detained?

[Other language spoken]

With with regard to the pattern of detention, what we have is still, we have both.

We have people that were detained randomly, indiscriminately during protests or that were near places that there were protests.

And then we have the Operation Tum Tum, which is an operation where they targeted specific people and we have both kind of people still detained.

So this contributes to the fear of people being detained.

So you have both kind of of people, that's what we can say about detention and who remains detained.

But the other effect is, if you have seen this is also a common practise by the Venezuelan government, which is they release people, for example, after negotiating with the country, but then they detain more people and they detain, now they're detaining foreigners.

So you have these mechanisms that are part are are a part of the attack of a civilian population and that constitute we believe the crime against humanity of persecution for political motives.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you everyone.

[Other language spoken]

Did you have a follow up or is your hand still raised?

Yes, yes, right.

They were 43.

Is that correct the number that I mentioned or that you mentioned?

And also if you can just specify because you, you said for 84 foreign foreigners are in gaol.

So this is and for Venezuelans, how, how is exactly are they in gaol?

And I did I understand correctly.

Did you say that Venezuelan authorities, they released people after negotiating with the government, with the government of their countries, their state authorities and then they they detain again people from that same country.

Is that what you said?

[Other language spoken]

So I'm sorry, I don't think I understood all of your questions, but just to clarify, so the mission is documented, the cases of 84 individuals, foreign nationals who have been detained.

Out of those, to our knowledge, 19 have been released.

And as we pointed out this morning, it was mostly following negotiations between Venezuela and and in this case the the United States government.

Now I believe you had your question on the 43 individuals that remain detained.

These are other non foreign national individuals.

So the but persons of the profile that we have been focusing our investigation on, which are persons perceived to be opponents to the government.

Some belong to the political opposition, others don't.

They are journalists, human rights defenders, people use social media to express their views or who have been in some way associated with the elections of 2024 and have not been yet released.

I don't know if I'm missing any other question because I had some trouble understanding everything.

If everything is fine, then Todd, we're OK, Back to you.

Ready.

[Other language spoken]

Unless you have any concluding comments in Spanish or English, we are done.

Did you want to say anything else?

[Other language spoken]

All right.

Thank you, everyone for joining us.

[Other language spoken]

HRC - Press conference: Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela - 22 September 2025