While protests erupted throughout Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro’s “victory,” the regime’s security forces imprisoned a 16-year-old teenager in Caracas, who was on his way home with a friend.
The young man was held incommunicado for four days in the cells of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate, where he was beaten to force him to make a recorded confession. The beating left him with a broken hand and two broken teeth.
In a video, later handed over as evidence to the court, the teenager admits under torture to having received payments to take part in the protests against Maduro’s reelection. He is currently being tried on terrorism charges in the Venezuelan capital.
More than 150 minors, some as young as 13, have been imprisoned by the Maduro regime’s security forces following the disputed elections of July 28. Of the minor detainees, at least 20 were girls, the United Nations (U.N.) Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela indicated in a recent report to investigate systemic violations and human rights abuses.
According to Venezuelan criminal legislation, minors deserve special treatment, due to their age. Yet minors imprisoned as part of the brutal crack-down against protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics, on the aftermath of highly contested election results, were charged with crimes such as terrorism and incitement to hatred.
The U.N. report also identified cases in which minors were victims of sexual violence while in custody, in contravention of “international child protection norms and standards.” Targeting and terrorizing minors is yet another low for the Maduro regime in its long history of repression.
According to Venezuelan human rights nongovernmental organization Foro Penal, from late July to early November 2024, at least 1,958 people were imprisoned for political reasons.
The U.N. report stressed that the detained minors were denied access to a private attorney, and instead were assigned public defenders loyal to the regime.
Venezuelan Attorney Joel García Hernández was among the attorneys that families attempted to hire to defend their children, he told Diálogo.
“No court receives these appointments. The representatives appointed me to defend the interests and rights of their children, but this was not accepted by the courts in criminal matters for children and adolescents. They then imposed a public defender,” García said, adding that public defenders “have their hands tied.”
“They make a mock defense, but they can’t do much more. If they make too many requests or appeals to annul a sentence, they can be substituted and be imprisoned as well,” García said.
Preconceived plan
The use of the courts as part of the repressive apparatus against minors is part of a plan elaborated by the Maduro regime before the elections of July 28, Zair Mundaray, a criminal lawyer and former litigation director of the Attorney General’s Office, told Diálogo. “Chavismo knew that it was going to reach this moment.”
Proof of this, Mundaray said, was the creation of the special jurisdiction in terrorism matters for minors, with two preliminary proceedings courts that operate only in the Capital District. With this, they ensure the “centralization” of judicial processes.
“Historically there have been minors [in protests], but they were never accused of the crime of terrorism […]. Chavismo prepared for this. It projected it into the future. The maximum penalty for these youths was five years. They modified the law and took it to 10 years,” Mundaray said.
According to Mundaray, an extorsion mechanism of the families of detained minors was established, with the participation of agents of the National Police and prosecutors of the Attorney General’s Office. As such, he added, the numbers of juveniles deprived of their liberty do not coincide with those that finally go to trial.
