The NGO bill introduced in the Venezuelan National Assembly is a severe threat to civic space in the country, and will gravely limit defenders' ability to engage with international human rights mechanisms. Defenders should be supported and this bill withdrawn, write Calixto Avila (Provea) and Eleanor Openshaw (ISHR).
On 17 April 2023, ISHR submitted its annual submission to the report to the UN Secretary General on reprisals and intimidation against defenders engaging or seeking to engage with the UN and its human rights mechanisms.
Civil society spoke of the ongoing human rights crisis in Venezuela this week at the Council making evident that, despite Venezuela’s best efforts to denounce the Fact-Finding Mission, the Mission’s work and that of OHCHR are absolutely essential to victims of violations.
Olnar Ortiz Bolívar and Alexandra Lezama, human rights defenders from Venezuela, are attending the Human Rights Council 52nd session, where the Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela will present an oral update on the human rights situation in the country.
Alexandra Lezama is a human rights defender from Venezuela who came to Geneva to expose the facts and consequences of illegal mining and the contamination of the environment in the State of Bolívar.
Olnar is an indigenous human rights defender from Venezuela coming to Geneva to deliver important messages to the international community for the preservation of the Amazon and ancestral lands.
We did it! On 7 October 2022, the Human Rights Council renewed the vital mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Venezuela and the reporting mandate of OHCHR for another two years, with 19 votes in favour, 5 votes against and 23 abstentions.
States at the UN Human Rights Council have voted to renew the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Venezuela (FFM) for another two years, ensuring the continuation of a mechanism that has become central to the work of human rights defenders. It has also extended the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to report to the Council.
In Venezuela it is government policy to torture dissents, the UN mission of experts on Venezuela told the world two years ago. These violations, amounting to likely crimes against humanity, continue. In their latest report the experts dive deeper into the nature of the crimes, who the victims are and names perpetrators. This morning this report goes before the Human Rights Council.
In 2019, a group of largely Latin American states led a successful bid for the United Nations to establish an independent investigative mechanism on Venezuela in response to the human rights crisis in the country. During these years, the Mission has been a key mechanism in a system of complementary international bodies providing a vision of the change needed to eradicate impunity and prevent further systemic human rights violations. Now, a few weeks off the expiration of the Mission’s mandate, States in the region must again take leadership of a process to ensure its preventative work continues in particular with the uncertainty of a Presidential electoral period looming.
