Venezuela's socialist regime is currently unjustly imprisoning and torturing dozens of children who have been charged with “terrorism” for allegedly taking part in anti-regime protests following the fake presidential election on July 28. are.
Socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has launched a brutal campaign to suppress dissent in the aftermath of a fraudulent election. According to United Nations estimates expertThe crackdown left 27 people dead and more than 2,400 detained.
The Venezuelan non-governmental organization Foro Penal has documented at least 129 children in Venezuelan detainees. Mid-August. Although some minors have previously been released from wrongful imprisonment, the Foro Prison Bureau Estimation In November, it was announced that 69 minors remained unjustly detained by the Maduro regime.
The NGO statistics were:certified” said Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS). According to Foro Penar, approximately 1,800 people remain in detention.
For months, families of unjustly detained minors have been condemned Regime officials regularly beat and torture children, who are accused of vaguely “terrorist” acts. Some minors have reportedly been forced to record videos “confessing” to crimes.
Last week, a woman who identified herself as “Maria Alejandra” was arrested. spoke To the Venezuelan newspaper El Calabobeno The decision was made to denounce the plight of one of the incarcerated minors, a teenage boy diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, his 15-year-old son, Ariángel Rodríguez.
His mother told the newspaper that her son had been in police custody since July 29 after he left home when he saw fireworks in the distance and disappeared for three days. On the third day, she said she received a phone call informing her that Mr. Aliángel would be charged with terrorism. When she arrived, her son had a broken leg, bruised ribs, an unrecognizable face, and boot prints on his face.
“The police officers beat my son violently and brutally and said very ugly things,” Maria Alejandra said, adding that despite the beating, her son released a video in which he confessed to the alleged “crime.” He added that he was not recording it.
The mother stressed that her son was developing untreated symptoms of schizophrenia because she was not allowed to give him the treatment he needed. As a result, the mother said her 15-year-old son attempted suicide twice.
Teani Urbina, a Venezuelan mother of a 17-year-old boy identified as Miguel Urbina; condemned In early November, she reported to Voice of America (VOA) that her son was imprisoned in what she called the “underworld.” The name is given to the cells located in the basement of the Bolivarian National Police building, known as “Zone 7.”
VOA reported that the boy was arrested after going out to eat in Caracas on August 2. The mother explained that police are charging him with “terrorism,” inciting hatred, obstructing a public highway, criminal damage to property and resisting authority over the alleged vandalism of a police station.
“They passed an electric current through [electricity] He forced them to record a video showing them paying him for destroying a police module. He resisted, but they beat him. they let him grab the card [electricity]Bags containing tear gas were also used,” Urbina said, adding that the food sent had to be paid for “in time.”
VOA also spoke to two women, Dionexis Garcia and María Navas, who said their relatives were imprisoned in the same “underworld” cells.
“That's what they call cells.”La Llorona' [‘the weeping one’]. why do you cry? Because walls sweat and walls drip water. Let's say it's sweat (…) In that underground world, they had to wear boxer shorts because the heat was so bad you couldn't even breathe,'' Garcia said. His 1-year-old brother, Diomer Gomez, experienced this while incarcerated.
“We even had to rent a fan for an hour to get some air. There was no toilet there, no conditions, so they pooped in bags,” she added.
Other cases of torture and other inhuman treatment of minors documented by the United Nations in its latest document report Two girls, aged 16 and 17, were among them. detained and are exposed to intimidation, molestation, and food deprivation under threatening conditions. They reportedly had two other children. became the target One of the children suffered a broken tooth and an injury to his arm as a result of the assault by the arresting officer.
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab in public rejected In mid-November, all “school-age children” were detained in Venezuela, alleging it was part of a smear campaign against the socialist regime. Saab said the detained minors were teenagers who “confessed to being used to provoke violence after the July 28 presidential election.”
A few days later, Venezuela's interior minister, a man long suspected of drug lord Diosdado Cabello recognized The children were detained, but they blamed their arrests on their parents, who allegedly allowed the “protests”.
“So they're putting pressure on [us] Along with the poor political prisoners and children in detention. Where were the parents who sent their children to school on July 29th and 30th? [protests]?Why didn't they take care of their children?? where were they? Now we're the bad guys.'' Cabello said.
Argentina's Foreign Minister Gerardo Vertein condemned the Maduro regime's unfair detention of minors and human rights violations in remarks to Argentine news channel Todo Noticias on Sunday.
“They use the Cuban system to take away people’s children, take minors to prison, torture and rape them. We should respect their will,” said Vertein. said.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan writer who chronicles life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
