Informe Ginebra, 01.07.2020 Consejo de DDHH de la ONU
Recommendations
The High Commissioner considers that most of the recommendations of her previous report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/41/18) remain valid. The following recommendations are complementary and seek to guide the Government on the adoption of concrete measures to address the human rights concerns identified in this report.
Ensure that exceptional measures authorized under the “state of alarm” are strictly necessary and proportionate, limited in time, and subject to independent oversight and review;
Respect, protect and fulfil the rights to freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, as well as the rights to access to information andto participate in political affairs;
Publish the national annual budget and expenditure reports, guarantee access to key data to assess the realization of rights and re-establish the oversight role of the National Assembly on use of public funds;
Refrain from discrediting human rights defenders and media professionals, and take effective measures to protect them, including by adopting a specialized protocol to investigate human rights violations and criminal offences against them;
Revise security policies to implement international norms and standards on the use of force and human rights, particularly by restoring the civilian nature of police forces, conducting vetting, restricting the functions of “special forces”, and strengthening internal and external oversight mechanisms;
Ensure systematic, prompt, effective and thorough, as well as independent, impartial and transparent investigations into all killings by security forces and armed colectivos, and ensure independence of all investigative bodies, accountability of perpetrators and redress for victims;
Put an end to incommunicado detention, including by intelligence services; guarantee that any individual subject to pre-trial detention is held in official pre-trial detention centres subject to judicial oversight, and transfer all persons detained in premises of intelligence services to official detention centres;
Ensure the rights to food, water and sanitation, health, security and dignity of all persons deprived of liberty, including by meeting gender specific needs;
Address the underlying causes of overcrowding and undue judicial delays through comprehensive reform of the administration of justice;
Adopt specific measures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the rights to health and security of detainees, by inter alia granting alternative measures to deprivation of liberty to the broadest set of prisoners possible, consistent with protection of public safety;
Release unconditionally all persons unlawfully or arbitrarily deprived of liberty, including through the implementation of the decisions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
Ensure effective investigation and sanctioning of those responsible for cases of torture and ill-treatment, and strengthen the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture, incompliance with international human rights norms;
Guarantee a full-scale United Nations led response to the humanitarian situation, including increased access for humanitarian actors, facilitating the entry of the World Food Programme, regularizing the presence of international non-governmental organizations and ensuring the protection of all humanitarian workers;
Adopt all necessary measures to ensure the safe, dignified and voluntary return and sustainable reintegration of Venezuelan returnees; ensure their access to healthcare and social protection, and their protection from discrimination and stigmatization;
Increase engagement with international human rights protection mechanisms, including the special procedures system, by receiving regular official visits of mandate-holders;
Facilitate the establishment of an OHCHR office in the country as an effective means to assist the State in tackling the human rights challenges and concerns addressed in this report.
Member States should:
(a) Consider revising, suspending or lifting sectoral sanctions imposed on Venezuela which impede the Government’s efforts to address the combined impact on the population of the humanitarian situation and the COVID-19 pandemic.
