Nearly 7,000 people have been killed during security operations in Venezuela in the past year and a half, the UN said on Thursday, warning that many of the killings likely constituted “executions.”
In a report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that the Venezuelan government had registered at least 6,856 people killed in alleged confrontations with state forces since the beginning of last year.
“The incidence of alleged extrajudicial killings by security forces ... has been shockingly high,” Bachelet’s office said in a statement.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Last year, the government registered 5,287 killings, purportedly for “resistance to authority” during such operations, and between Jan. 1 and May 19 this year, another 1,569 similar killings were registered, the report said.
The numbers were provided by the Venezuelan government to the UN agency in response to a request made following a visit to the country by a technical team in March, spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters, adding that this was the first time the UN had published the figures.
Bachelet, who last month visited Venezuela, warned in her report that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions committed by the security forces.”
The report, which Bachelet was yesterday to present to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, especially pointed a finger at the Venezuelan National Police’s Special Actions Force (FAES).
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “is concerned that the authorities may be using FAES, and possibly other security forces, as part of a policy of social control,” the report said.
“These killings warrant immediate investigation to ensure accountability of perpetrators and guarantees of non-recurrence,” the report said, urging Caracas to “dissolve FAES.”
Bachelet also called on the government to “establish an impartial and independent national mechanism, with the support of the international community, to investigate extrajudicial executions during security operations, ensure accountability of perpetrators and redress for victims.”
Thursday’s report also decried a wide range of other grave rights breaches in Venezuela, which is caught in an economic crisis and a political standoff between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government and Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido.
The report concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that grave violations of economic and social rights, including the rights to food and health, have been committed in Venezuela.”
It also said that “as the economic crisis deepened, the authorities began using social programs in a discriminatory manner, based on political grounds, and as an instrument of social control.”
The report found that sanctions imposed on Venezuela, while not responsible for the country’s woes, were “exacerbating further the effects of the economic crisis, and thus the humanitarian situation.”
It charged that Venezuela’s government over the past decade, and especially since 2016, had implemented a strategy “aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government.”
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met in Beijing yesterday, where they vowed to bring people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait closer to facilitate the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The meeting was held in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People, a venue typically reserved for meetings between Xi and foreign heads of state. In public remarks prior to a closed-door meeting, Xi, in his role as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said that Taiwan is historically part of China, and remains an “inalienable” and
RSS