✵Juris Lady𓆃

Venezuela: the UN Fact-Finding Mission releases its key findings following the US January aggression. Sobering reading. “From September 2025 to January 2026, the nature of human rights violations in the country remained consistent with the 2024 post-electoral crackdown, and included arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, and serious violations of due process guarantees. The FFM notes a decrease in the number of long-term detentions and related violations, but other forms of repression endured. For instance: hundreds of political prisoners are still in arbitrary detention and at risk of torture. The FFM laments the fact that the decrease in the harshest forms of repression after January 3 has not been accompanied by the legal, political, institutional and policy transformational changes required. “The measures of political liberalization adopted remain partial, conditional and reversible at best.” “The State’s legal and institutional structures that have sustained political persecution and facilitated the commission of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity have not been dismantled, nor has the interim Government shown any intention of reforming them. The mission is disappointed by the interim Government’s appointment of individuals involved in violations and crimes to key positions in the Cabinet, security forces and intelligence bodies, and its failure to dismiss and, when appropriate, prosecute such individuals, a number of whom have previously been identified in the mission’s reports.” “The current administration has taken no meaningful steps to advance domestic investigations into gross human rights violations and international crimes committed over the past decade. The withdrawal from the Rome Statute, a decision supported by the United States, appears to further undermine prospects for accountability.” ohchr.org/sites/default/file…