Mothers of minors imprisoned by Nicolás Maduro: ‘They lost teeth and were given electric shocks’

Seven teenagers arrested in the context of post-election protests in Venezuela have been sent to trial accused of terrorism and inciting hatred, crimes for which they could be sentenced to 10 years in prison. This group, detained in the state of Carabobo, in the central region of the country, forms part of the 67 minors who remain in prison since the days following the presidential election in which Chavismo declared Nicolás Maduro the winner without providing evidence in the form of the paper ballot tallies from voting stations. In the protests that spread throughout the country after the disputed July 28 vote, a total of 160 children were arrested.

More than two months have passed since those arrests, and the mothers and relatives of the detainees were only permitted contact with some of them for the first time this week. They found they had been beaten and are emaciated, the families reported. Some of them had burnt nipples and were missing teeth. They had been victims of torture, according to testimonies collected by NGOs and local media.

These seven teenagers, aged between 14 and 17, were charged in video hearings without access to a private defense. The government has described them as terrorists and said they were hired by the opposition to stir up protests after the election. Maduro ordered the remodeling of two prisons in the center of the country to imprison them along with the more than 1,700 detainees registered since July 28.

The mothers of the detainees have repeatedly and from different places denounced a pattern. The authorities, they say, have coerced the minors into recording videos to incriminate themselves with the government’s version of the alleged conspiracy to spark protests after the announcement of the election results. The relatives of the seven teenagers who went to trial in Carabobo said that their children were forced to say that they received $30 for going out to protest in the streets, according to local media outlet El Carabobeño. “They did so after several days of being beaten, so much so that some lost teeth. Another has burnt nipples because they used electric shocks on him. None of the forensic examinations demanded by the relatives were carried out,” El Carabobeño reported.

This Thursday, the relatives of the imprisoned minors protested once again. “Neither criminals nor terrorists, our boys are innocent,” chanted a group of relatives in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas, where they filed an appeal demanding the release of all minors and the dismissal of all charges.

“They have been detained for 65 days and we have not had a response from the Attorney General [Tarek William Saab]. There are many who have not been allowed to visit yet. We demand full freedom, access to defense, and the dropping of all charges. Our children are students who were detained in their homes or playing in the street. They were arbitrarily detained without an arrest warrant or in flagrante delicto,” denounced Marelis Ruiz, one of the mothers who went to the Supreme Court. “In Tocuyito [prison] there are children suffering from depression, malnourished, who have tried to take their own lives,” added Wendy Liendo, who was able to see her son for the first time this week two months after he was arrested.

Several protests have been staged by the relatives of these detainees, which have exponentially increased the number of political prisoners in Venezuela, surpassing Cuba and Nicaragua. The abuses denounced by the relatives of the prisoners, which include disappearances during the first hours of detention, violations of due process, mistreatment, and torture, have led to the formation of the Mothers for Truth Committee, which is trying to seek justice.

The allegations of torture and the trial of some of the detained teenagers have sparked a scandal. Activists and human rights organizations are demanding their immediate release. “They have been deprived of their freedom for two months and are now being denied the possibility of returning to their families and continuing their studies,” said the NGO Justice, Encounter and Forgiveness. “It is absolutely reprehensible that young people who have not committed any crime are being criminalized, causing serious harm to their present and their future.”

Presidential candidate Enrique Márquez accompanied the mothers in the protest action Thursday. Opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia also expressed their condemnation of the situation. “How much evil can there be in a person and in a regime to torture children and young people?” Machado wrote on her social networks. “I embrace solidarity with all the mothers and fathers who are today enduring the experience of their children being kidnapped,” said González Urrutia.

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