Hindustan Times ·
Post-Maduro Venezuela has kept 'repressive apparatus': UN experts
UN investigators say Venezuela has seen fewer detentions and disappearances, but its repressive security structures remain largely unchanged.
Venezuela has maintained a "repressive apparatus" responsible for illegal detentions and disappearances despite improvements in human rights since the United States detained longtime leader Nicolas Maduro, UN investigators said Wednesday.
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela said it had seen "a significant decline in long-term detentions and related enforced disappearances" since US forces swooped to seize Maduro on January 3.
It added however that while many political detainees had been released and there was greater scope for political gatherings, "these changes have not been accompanied by the institutional reforms required to ensure a meaningful and sustained improvement in the human rights situation".
"Numerous laws used to criminalise dissent remain in force," the mission said in a statement as it prepares to hand its report to the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.
"And the country's extensive intelligence services and security forces retain essentially the same structures, policies and practices."