Following months of repression that escalated in the wake of what the international community described as stolen elections, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro kicked off the new year and his new autocratic reign by further cracking down on civic spaces, rights, and freedoms.
Among his latest moves was to announce a constitutional reform process and the implementation of several recently approved laws that aim to redefine repression through regulations, human rights nongovernmental organization (NGO) Civil Rights Defenders said in a statement.
One of these laws, the Simón Bolívar Liberator against the Imperialist Blockade Organic Law, passed with “unusual haste,” according to Venezuelan NGO Acceso a la Justicia, which promotes the defense of justice and the rule of law, aims, as its name indicates, at punishing opposition figures who have supported sanctions against the regime.
The Venezuelan National Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, fast-tracked the legislation after rejecting the approval of the so-called Bolivar Act by the U.S. House of Representative in November, aimed at tightening economic sanctions and prohibiting any business operations with the Maduro regime.
The Simón Bolívar Organic Law, enacted on December 2, consists of 23 articles. The Law establishes that sanctions against the Maduro regime is a “crime against humanity.” It also contemplates prison sentences of 25 to 30 years (the maximum under Venezuelan law) and bans from public office for as long as 60 years for those who have promoted or requested international sanctions against the Maduro regime.
The corresponding proceedings will be carried out by prosecutors and judges, who have been appointed by the ruling party. So far, the Simón Bolívar Law lacks regulations. But, according to Benigno Alarcón, director of the Center for Political and Government Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, the interpretation of judges and prosecutors will be enough.
“The aim is to limit the political activity of actors who do not represent a headache for the dictatorship, and to try to take out of the game others who effectively represent a problem for the oppressors,” Alarcón told Diálogo. Laws in Venezuela, he added, cannot be applied retroactively in trials, but in the South American country there is no rule of law “and any madness is possible.”
Persecution of opponents
Since the July 28 elections, the Maduro regime has built what Venezuelan sociologist and human rights researcher Rafael Uzcátegui described as a “legal architecture” aimed at limiting the rights of all those who oppose the regime. This includes the Simón Bolívar Law as well as the “antifascist law” and the “anti-nongovernmental law.”
The Electoral Power, headed by the ruling party, declared Maduro the winner in the elections without releasing the records that support this decision. The protests that ensued in Venezuela, resulted in at least 28 deaths, hundreds of wounded, and more than 2,000 people imprisoned.
According to César Pérez Vivas, lawyer and former governor of Táchira state, the norms promoted by the Maduro regime point to the constitution of a totalitarian system.
“Hitler at the time made it a crime to listen to a French radio station. Today in Venezuela, if a citizen is accused of questioning Maduro and criticizing the regime, he is immediately labeled a traitor to the homeland. They are labeled as collaborators or associates of the empire,” Pérez Vivas told Diálogo.
The Simón Bolívar Law will also make possible the de facto confiscation of all the assets of those persons accused of promoting the sanctions. “It is more serious to be an opponent in Venezuela than to be a murderer or narcotrafficker,” Pérez Vivas concluded.
