Photo: Espacio Público
Espacio Público announced today that Carlos Correa had been indeed arrested and has now been released from detention.
Thanks to all the persons who took action and sent a letter to the Permanent Mission of Venezuela in Geneva, calling on authorities to disclose Carlos Correa’s fate and whereabouts and release him. His organisation, Espacio Público, informed us some minutes ago that Carlos had been indeed arrested and has now been released from detention.
Carlos Correa is a renowned human rights defender. On 7 January 2025, he was disappeared by hooded people. On 15 January, a prosecutor informed Carlos’ family that he was indeed detained by State security forces but could not confirm the charges and his whereabouts. On 16 January, Carlos was finally released from detention and able to reunite with his family.
Other human rights defenders such as Javier Tarazona, Rocio San Miguel, Carlos Julio Rojas, and Kennedy Tejeda remain in arbitrary detention.
As explained in a public statement signed by ISHR and more than 80 organisations, the Venezuelan State is increasingly harassing and persecuting human rights defenders in an attempt to silence their work and their demands for respect for civil and political human rights in the aftermath of the elections of 28 July 2024.
ISHR will continue to support Venezuelan human rights defenders and partners, and call for the release of all human rights defenders arbitrarily detained.
On 5 and 6 May 2025, during its 83rd Ordinary Session, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) held the second joint forum of its special mechanisms. This serves as an opportunity to bring actors from various backgrounds to discuss the possibility of converging human rights and sustainable development for the benefit of Africans.
At the 83rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, held in Banjul (The Gambia) from 2 May to 22 May, ISHR delivered an oral statement calling for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the continuation of the process toward a human rights defenders protection law in Zambia, reparations for Africans and people of African descent, and a binding treaty on environmental rights in Africa.
On 3 May 2025, on the sidelines of the 83rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ISHR co-sponsored a side event on the situation of human rights defenders in the Sahel, organised by the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation against Torture.
