The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, included Provea in his annual report on alleged cases of reprisals and intimidation for cooperation with the United Nations on Human Rights. The report was presented to the Human Rights Council according to its Resolution 12/2, due to actions of State agents that occurred between June 2019 and April this year.

The report refers to Provea in the following terms:

137. The case of the Programa Venezolano de Educación y Acción en Derechos Humanos (Provea), a civil society organization which has regularly engaged with the UN, was included in the 2019 report of the Secretary-General, following its cooperation with OHCHR’s March 2019 visit to Venezuela (A/HRC/42/30, Annex I, para. 115). On 11 July 2019, following the release of OHCHR’s report, a high-level Government official rejected the report on his Twitter account and stated that Provea was one of the report’s sources. He encouraged the National Constituent Assembly to “legislate without fear the work of NGOs in Venezuela,” to “determine the origin of their funding,” and their “false pro-human rights missions.”

138. Further, on 19 February 2020, the President of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) announced in the weekly public television programme “Con el Mazo Dando” that the NCA would initiate a revision of laws on foreign funding of NGOs and private individuals, specifically referring to Provea. This public reference to Provea was made a week before the beginning of the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where Provea’s participation was made known on social media.

The report provides a follow up on two cases included in previous documents: the case of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni, victim of reprisals “following a decision passed in her capacity as judge on the basis of a [UN] Working Group on Arbitrary Detention opinion”; and the case of Councilor Luis Fernando Albán (which occurred on October 8, 2018), “following his detention and death in custody, after returning from New York to meet with different actors on the margins of the General Assembly.”

The Secretary-General of the United Nations stated in the conclusions of his report:

“I continue to receive a large number of reports of incidents of intimidation and reprisals against individuals or groups seeking to cooperate or having cooperated with the United Nations despite the cancellation of many activities owing to COVID-19 since March 2020. As I have repeatedly underlined, this is absolutely unacceptable, and I welcome the support of the General Assembly, Human Rights Council and Security Council, among other intergovernmental bodies, on this issue. Allegations of reprisals and intimidation reinforced the assertion that I made in my last report that repeated incidents can signal patterns. In this context, I remain concerned about the deteriorating environment for those engaging with the United Nations.”

Provea appreciates the support offered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in including in his report the recent acts of intimidation and reprisals suffered by the non governmental organization. These acts go against the image of openness and cooperation that the de facto government of Nicolás Maduro tries to show during the current sessions of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Provea expresses its solidarity with Judge María Lourdes Afiuni and with the family of Councilor Luis Fernando Albán, whose cases were mentioned in the report of the Secretary General.

We will continue to make visible the threats against our organization and any violation of the right to free association and assembly against the entire Venezuelan social and political leadership, as well as the different complaints about the violation of human rights in our country.

PROVEA

You can read the full report (A/HRC/45/36 advance edited version) HERE.

Translated by: José Rafael Medina