In the heart of Venezuela’s sprawling capital, a human rights group has fortified its office windows to withstand bullets and grenade blasts. It’s a stark reminder of the risks involved in monitoring and documenting abuses against tens of thousands of Venezuelans, which investigators report are often perpetrated by the country’s government.
Provea, short for the Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights, has in recent months been declared an “enemy of the people” by government officials, who have accused it of conspiring against the country. Two weeks ago, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a multilateral body that seeks to safeguard human rights across the Americas, called on the Venezuelan government to allow Provea to continue its work without interference after the organization reported threats by state agents.
Marino Alvarado, Provea’s legal program coordinator, said as Venezuela’s July elections near, at least three local human rights activists have been arbitrarily arrested. After one of those arrests, officials in Venezuela also expelled United Nations human rights officers from the country.
Keeping tabs on those injustices can seem like a gargantuan task for what he called a “small but mighty” team of 14, which was recognized last week by the Washington Office on Latin America for its courage in investigating human rights violations, supporting victims and promoting democracy in Venezuela. Still, Alvarado added, “As the situation worsens in Venezuela, we only feel more committed to our job.”
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“People need our help now more than ever,” Alvarado said. “So the government can outlaw us and threaten us all they want, but we will never stop advocating for Venezuela, its democracy and the rights of its people.”
Venezuelan government officials did not respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.
Provea was founded in Caracas in 1988as an independent watchdog of the country’s economic, social and cultural rights. That work has caused “several degrees of tensions” with the different administrations Provea has sought to hold accountable, said Alvarado, who has worked in the organization for 27 years.
But the situation has changed drastically over the past decade. Although Venezuela’s constitution says the government must investigate human rights violations, Alvarado said impunity often prevails. Provea and other groups now consider it their duty to track what officials won’t — work that Alvarado said has triggered retaliation in the form of arrests, threats, raids and smear campaigns.
Armed groups backed by President Nicolás Maduro — known as “colectivos” — have gone to Provea’s office to issue threats multiple times in recent years, Alvarado said. Paramilitary forces and the country’s intelligence services temporarily kidnapped one of Alvarado’s colleagues in 2014. The next year, days after Provea first requested protection from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Alvarado and his 9-year-old child were returning home when they were approached by three armed men, who beat Alvarado and rummaged through his home for close to an hour.
Still, Alvarado said the magnitude of the attacks and risks have never “been as great as they are now,” Alvarado said. His organization has tracked cases of activists and ordinary citizens being imprisoned for speaking out against the government, he said.
Officials have arrested campaign staffers for opposition leader María Corina Machado and issued arrest warrants for journalists who have uncovered government corruption. On Tuesday, Foro Penal, a Caracas-based human rights organization, said Venezuela is holding 273 political prisoners.
The caseloads for Provea’s staffers have “grown exponentially,” Alvarado said.
Since Maduro took office in 2013, Provea has identified more than 43,000 people whose “right to personal integrity” has been violated — including 1,652 who were tortured and 7,309 who were subjected to “cruel, inhumane and degrading” treatment or punishment. The organization tallied more than 2,600 victims of human rights violations in 2023 — up 20 percent from the previous year. The inhumane treatment, the organization said, had led to at least 28 deaths inside the country’s penitentiary centers.
Maduro and his administration have long denied perpetrating human rights violations and holding political prisoners.
But since 2019, the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela has released a slew of reports detailing gross violations of human rights — including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture — ordered by Maduro and his inner circle to silence, discourage and quash opposition, according to investigators. The victims, according to the U.N. group, are often labor union members, journalists, activists, students and government opponents.
Venezuela is also the only country in Latin America with an open investigation in the International Criminal Court over possible crimes against humanity. On May 3, experts at the Organization of American States — a multilateral regional body in the Western Hemisphere — called on the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Venezuelan officials. Those officials, the experts said, have not only perpetrated human rights violations but also have established a system of impunity that leaves “the vast majority of victims of crimes against humanity without any recourse to justice.”
Human rights groups try to fill that gap by “doing the work that the government should be doing, all while they’re being persecuted by the government,” said Génesis Dávila, a human rights attorney and founder of Defiende Venezuela, which has represented victims in the ICC. But she said the human rights movement has only strengthened over the years — largely because of collaboration between groups.
“When we’re in a situation where there’s no political will to follow up on these cases, no functioning justice system and no investigation teams,” Dávila said, “the work of human rights organizations in recording what happens in Venezuela has become incredibly important.”
In a statement to The Post, a U.S. State Department spokesperson echoed Dávila, saying that the agency “commends Venezuelan human rights defenders and journalists for their essential work in support of a more democratic Venezuela despite the risks to themselves and their families. We continue to call for an end to the harassment, detention, and arrest of civil society actors.”
In Washington, similar accolades filled a room in the Hamilton Hotel last week as Alvarado and Lissette González, an investigator and monitoring coordinator for Provea, accepted the Washington Office on Latin America’s 2024 Human Rights Award for the organization’s work.
González said she knows the pain of victims’ families well: Her 63-year-old father, Rodolfo González, was arrested in 2014 after he marched in the student-led protests that swept Venezuela that year. He died by suicide while in custody the next year. He was never sentenced, nor was his death investigated, his daughter said.
Five years later, her father’s death led Lissette González, then a sociology professor, to switch careers and become a human rights advocate. She also wrote a book about her family’s experience.
Though her days are now filled with collecting testimony from victims’ families, she still holds out hope that things can change in Venezuela, González told more than 400 people gathered for the award ceremony.
“There’s resistance — hope for change is in the air,” she said.
