In the context of the repression following the presidential election of July 28, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and disappearances have been verified. However, although it was suspected that the detainees could have been tortured, following a recurring pattern, there was no evidence of this, because the arrests have been accompanied by incommunicado detention and the impossibility of appointing a lawyer.
The same Independent International Fact-Finding Mission warned in its report of September 2024: “it is likely that the majority of cases of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment after July 28, 2024 have not yet been reported by the victims or their families.”
At the end of September and the beginning of October, the first hearings were held for children accused of terrorism. Three hearings were held for minors from Carabobo state, transferred to Guárico state. One hearing was held on September 27, another on October 2 and 3 with two, seven and two minors respectively, for a total of eleven children who were interacting with their mothers for the first time. The worst suspicions were confirmed there: the children were tortured, lost teeth and had burns on their nipples from the application of electricity.
Some children admitted the accusations under torture, others refused to plead guilty before the judge, but the result was the same for all. They will be tried for terrorism, inciting hatred, obstructing public roads and resisting authority, without the right to parole while the process lasts and with possible sentences of between 6 and 10 years in prison.
On October 3, three other children were presented in the state of Lara for a preliminary hearing. They were charged with terrorism, inciting hatred, damaging property and obstructing public roads, and will face trial in detention. The organization Movimiento Vinotinto announced that three other adolescents were still pending a preliminary hearing, who will surely suffer the same fate.
The public defense did not question the validity of confessions obtained under torture and the judge did not see the physical evidence. The children have been treated as adults, in telematic trials, without being able to appoint a lawyer of their choice, without protection as minors, in detention centers for adults. Some have expressed suicidal intentions.
On October 3, the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons released an audio recorded by the mothers of eight teenagers accused of terrorism, detained in the Preventive Detention Center for Adolescents and Women in Caraballeda, La Guaira state. In the audio, the minors scream from the detention center and ask their mothers for help, stating that they were being beaten and that they were not given the food that their families sent.
Now we know the information about children accused of terrorism in three detention centers, in three states, in a period of 8 days that have been tortured. These are not isolated incidents, and it is shocking to think that more complaints will be made public.
It is unacceptable to imagine that this level of degradation, in which police, military, jailers, public defenders, judges and prosecutors act in a coordinated, systematic and generalized manner, can be overcome with short courses and technical assistance. When children cry out for torture, adults in international organizations cannot turn a deaf ear, in order to maintain a space for dialogue with a criminal government. It is time to act.