Venezuela ramped up repression after disputed vote, UN says

By Deisy Buitrago and Emma Farge

CARACAS/GENEVA (Reuters) -President Nicolas Maduro's government escalated repressive tactics to crush peaceful protests and keep power after Venezuela's disputed election in July, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.

Electoral authorities awarded the vote to Maduro, without showing all tallies, but the opposition said its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won by a landslide with counts proving that. More than two dozen people died in protests with 2,400 arrested.

The U.N. fact-finding mission, which interviewed several hundred people remotely or in third countries as it is denied access to Venezuela, said authorities tried to dismantle the opposition, block independent information, and stop protests.

"We are facing a systematic, coordinated and deliberate repression by the Venezuelan government, which responds by a conscious plan to silence any form of dissent," mission head Marta Valinas told journalists in Geneva.

"The government has instrumentalised the entire state apparatus, including especially the justice system, with a view to silencing any difference of opinion that opposes its scheme and to staying in power at any price."

According to the mission, 24 out of 25 deaths were caused by gunshot wounds, mostly to the neck. Arrests under the feared "knock knock" operation - referring to the unexpected arrival at houses of government critics - often affected ordinary citizens in poor neighborhoods.

SUBSERVIENT AUTHORITIES

The Maduro government has blamed right-wing, foreign-instigated "extremists" and "fascists" for the latest bout of violence in the South American oil producer that has seen waves of protests crushed during his more than decade-long rule.

There was no immediate statement from Venezuelan authorities in response to the U.N. mission, which said it had tried to contact them for its investigation to no avail.

The U.N. report said repression around the election was orchestrated from Maduro down and marked a new milestone in the deterioration of rule of law in Venezuela.

"The main public authorities abandoned all semblance of independence and openly deferred to the executive," it said, noting that a climate of fear had been created.

Allegations of disappearances, torture and other cruel treatment have increased since 2019, the report said.

Opposition candidate Gonzalez has gone to Spain and requested asylum after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Venezuela.

U.N.-mandated investigations do not have legally binding powers but the abuses they document are sometimes used in international courts.

(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Emma Farge; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Stephen Coates and Andrew Cawthorne)