From May 11 to 23, 32 people have been detained in Lara for protesting against hunger and the collapse of public services, including 5 teenagers. 14 of them were arrested in Carora, 13 in El Tocuyo, and 5 in Iribarren, according to the record kept by human rights organization Foro Penal in the state. Both defense lawyers and the Human Rights Network agree that the arrests were arbitrary, some detainees were tortured, and the charges lack sufficient evidence to keep the affected deprived of liberty.

The most recent case occurred on May 20 in the Antonio José de Sucre neighborhood, in Barquisimeto. Five young men were abducted from their homes at 3 in the afternoon without a search warrant. Photographs and videos that went viral on social networks captured the moment when officers from the Special Actions Force (FAES) took brothers Naudy (33) and Aaron Atacho (23), Fabricio Ojeda (21), Pedro Zambrano (38), and Giovanny Meza (23), barefoot and shirtless, before the terrified look of their neighbors.

“They violated their homes. Photographs and videos show that, but the police report stated that they were caught red-handed blocking a public street. However, there is no visual proof that said obstruction took place. The presumption of protesting is not a crime, “said Abrahán Cantillo, coordinator of Foro Penal in Lara. People in the neighborhood spent a week protesting against power cuts of up to eight hours that affect them every night.

“One of the detainees was tortured (Meza), and he denounced it at the presentation hearing. The young man is a person with a disability, his left hand is missing and he is an epileptic patient. When he was taken from the Sucre neighborhood to the headquarters of the FAES in Santa Rosa, the officers began to hit him; he told them not to hit him on the head because he could convulse and they viciously hit him in the ribs. Meza recounted this during the hearing, where he convulsed in front of the judge. The medical examiner’s office determined that Giovanny has five fractured ribs, “said Henderson Maldonado, a lawyer with Movimiento Vinotinto, one of the organizations handling the case.

Meza and the other four young men were charged with instigation to commit a crime, possession of incendiary objects, obstruction of public roads, and association to commit crimes. They are held in prison by the FAES.

“The quarantine government has adopted a policy of disproportionate repression against those demanding better public services or criticizing the regime on social media. The behavioral pattern of the regime is to become more violent each day. It has declared war on the people,” said Nelson Fréitez, coordinator of the Human Rights Network in the region when he defines this new form of repression.

Fréitez points out that according to the file of the men detained in the Sucre neighborhood, the FAES got to perform the arrests because “cooperating patriots” denounced them for participating in criminal acts, without a prior investigation to determine such accusation. “The government has activated the Network of Articulation and Sociopolitical Action (RAAS) against the residents of the Sucre neighborhood, where whistleblowers or “cooperating patriots” seek to fracture the community, unleashing a feeling of hatred that if unchecked could cause an escalation of violence and revenge, “he said. In the Sucre neighborhood more than 200 anti-riots officers were deployed, who subjected the people to the torture of sirens while carrying out the procedure, “he said.

Alfonso Maldonado, priest and coordinator of the Human Rights Vicarage, described the events in the neighborhood as “abominable”, and rejected the other 27 arrests that have been made across the state. “They are abusing their authority, it is not possible to deploy the army against the people; they intend to enforce a curfew, but they end turning communities into a time bomb because the problems derived from the power outages remain unsolved. They cannot blame the society for protesting during the quarantine because those in power are responsible for not investing in recovering the national electric power system, “he said.

Maldonado questioned the “brutality”, which in his opinion the security forces have exerted against the people in the Sucre neighborhood. “People have been attacked, harassed, and tortured since the 2017 protests, but they continue to denounce it. This shows that Governor Carmen Meléndez does not promote grounds for dialogue,” he said.