The presidential elections that took place in Venezuela on July 28, 2024, have had a devastating effect on the country’s institutions. On the one hand, the administration led by Nicolas Maduro resorted to the extreme measure of seizing the voting receipts and – all this through the subordinate National Electoral Council – proclaiming a supposed victory that absolutely all evidence, even official, openly contradicts.
Thus, the Maduro regime has seen its already precarious legitimacy shake and has decided to concentrate its efforts on staying afloat through the radicalization of repression, seeking to suppress all dissent through terror. In this way, at the end of the electoral process and in response to the claims of civil society against electoral fraud, the mass arrest of political and social leaders began, the vast majority simple citizens who, respecting the law and obeying the electoral regulations, served as polling station members on the 28th. More than two thousand four hundred citizens, and among them numerous minors, were arrested without complying with the established procedures, without the right to defense, without there being any way to justify the arbitrary nature of their arrests.
But this repressive onslaught has had a high point: the group of six activists close to the presidential campaign of María Corina Machado, who heads the opposition leadership, who were forced to request asylum at the embassy of the Argentine Republic and who have been denied the possibility of safe passage that would allow them to leave the country. The threats against this group of six people began months before the election date, and in March 2024 they requested asylum at the Argentine embassy, which was granted.
Once the elections were held, and seeing that a group of countries, including Argentina, objected the fraudulent result, the Maduro regime demanded the withdrawal of diplomatic officials from Argentina, which is why, after hurried diplomatic negotiations, the Brazilian state assumed custody of the Argentine diplomatic headquarters and, consequently, of the asylum seekers. Even though this situation continued for a time, the Maduro regime later revoked its authorization for Brazil to maintain said custody. However, Brazil cannot cease its custody if a State willing to take responsibility for itself is not first determined.
Although this is the framework in the diplomatic field, in real terms the situation is much more pressing. The asylum seekers are subjected to deafening noises, the entry of food and medicine into the headquarters is being limited to extreme levels, the electricity service has been cut off for more than a hundred days, the water supply has been suspended; These are the forms of torture that the regime has used against these citizens. Psychological torture has also been present with drones flying over, placing snipers in nearby buildings, officials with assault rifles surrounding the diplomatic headquarters and threatening to enter and intimidating the residents of the sector.
The cruelty of the treatment of asylum seekers became evident again on February 26, when Fernando Martinez Mottola died. Martinez Mottola, one of the asylum seekers and a highly regarded negotiator, was forced to surrender to the authorities on December 20, due to the prolonged and forced confinement in extreme conditions that fatally undermined his health.
In this way, the provisions of the Convention on Diplomatic Asylum, ironically signed in Caracas in 1954, which establishes the situations in which this figure allows the protection of the integrity of asylum seekers, are flagrantly violated. Thus, the convention states that asylum must last “…for the time strictly essential for the asylum seeker to leave the country with the security granted by the government of the territorial State so that his life, freedom or personal integrity is not endangered, or for the asylum seeker to be placed in safety in any other way…” To do this, however, it is essential that the Venezuelan government grants a safe conduct, which has been requested repeatedly by the government of Brazil without success.
The international community is facing a flagrant violation of human rights, not only because the asylum granted to these citizens by the Argentine Republic is disrespected, but also because of the cruel treatment to which they are subjected in an unforgiving manner.
The request to the Venezuelan government to observe what is established in international law and extend safe conduct is a demand of a legal nature, but also a humanitarian one.