Amid Venezuela’s political crisis, organizations working to defend human rights and respond to the country’s complex humanitarian emergency are increasingly under attack by the Maduro government. In this context, many Venezuelan civil society organizations are pushing back against this repression by creating and preserving spaces to celebrate non-violent, democratic resistance.
On Sunday, January 9, Venezuela will hold a supplemental election in the state of Barinas, following the pro-government Supreme Court’s disqualification of the victory of opposition candidate Freddy Superlano. Sunday’s election follows regional and municipal elections that took place on November 21, which saw a landslide victory for pro-government candidates in 20 out of 23 states and 205 out of 332 municipalities.
Starting on Saturday, November 13, la Comisión para los Derechos Humanos del Estado Zulia (CODHEZ) is launching the sixth edition of its Human Rights Fair (FDH), an annual event hosted by CODHEZ in alliance with a network of other human rights organizations in the state of Zulia, to allow civil society organizations and activists to offer their reflections about the human rights situation in Venezuela.
On November 3, upon concluding a three-day visit to Venezuela, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan announced that the body is opening a formal investigation into crimes against humanity committed by civilian authorities, members of the armed forces and pro-government individuals in the context of protests and repression that have occurred since 2017.
On Monday, November 1, WOLA President Carolina Jiménez Sandoval was featured in a Q&A published in the Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Advisor on the implications of Alex Saab’s extradition on a potential democratic transition in Venezuela.
This week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that its Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, would embark on a ten-day visit to Colombia and Venezuela, his first visit to the region since taking office in June.
In this episode of The Venezuela Briefing, WOLA’s Kristen Martinez-Gugerli talks with Lucía Ramírez of Dejusticia and Livia Lenci of Missão Paz to discuss the response to Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Colombia and Brazil.
The extradition of Alex Saab, a close ally of Nicolás Maduro, to the United States this month has made headlines across the world, and has shed a light on the enormous and transnational scale of corruption in Venezuela.
This Wednesday, October 27 at 11 a.m. EDT, representatives of the Civic Forum will hold the first of two press conferences about the upcoming regional and local elections, in which they will discuss recent decisions to send missions to observe and accompany the elections on November 21.
On Sunday, October 16, the negotiating team representing the government of Nicolás Maduro announced that it would not participate in the round of talks set to take place in Mexico City from October 17 to 20. The decision came after it was announced that Alex Saab, a Colombian-born businessman and close Maduro ally accused of money-laundering, was extradited to the United States from Cape Verde, where he had been in custody since June 2020.