On the afternoon of this Friday, October 11th, the NGO received serious complaints from the relatives of those young people who are imprisoned in common prisons, during the protests against the “official” results as announced by the CNE (National Electoral Council) after the presidential elections of July 28th.
lapatilla.com
Relatives told the NGO Provea that inside the Tocuyito, Tocorón, Rodeo and Las Crisálidas prisons, young detainees are being pressured and threatened to admit crimes that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged them with without evidence and without guarantees of due process of being represented by independent defense lawyers.
More than 2,000 people detained for political reasons in the context of post-electoral repression are being accused of terrorism, a crime that, according to the Organic Law against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism (Lodofat), contemplates sentences of between 25 and 30 years in prison, Provea pointed out.
On the other hand, it is said that state officials are coercing prisoners under threats of being brought to trial without any kind of procedural benefit, and even subjecting them to torture and cruel treatment, including beatings, denial of food and medicine, and restrictions on receiving visitors.
“We remember that the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has established that the concept of torture and cruel treatment or punishment is not limited only to practices of physical or psychological violence, but also includes conditions of detention that do not respect human dignity, which occurs in cases of overcrowding, poor conditions of confinement, abusive disciplinary sanctions, lack of medical care, absence of adequate food and drinking water, and lack of resources to meet the basic needs of detainees, among others,” stated the NGO Provea on its social network accounts, rejecting the pressures and threats against detainees.
They say that prisoners are being forced to sign and put their fingerprints on blank papers, which constitutes “massive procedural fraud and a new and open violation of the judicial guarantees of the detainees.”
The relatives demand that the physical and psychological abuse to which the detainees and the entire family are being subjected be stopped immediately.