UN demands a Venezuela that respects freedom of protest

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today called on the Venezuelan authorities to respect the right of their citizens to freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful demonstration.

"We are very concerned about the ban on basic rights of expression and demonstration, especially in the context of Sunday's election process," office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told a news conference.

The Venezuelan government has banned "public meetings and demonstrations, concentrations of people and any other similar act that may disturb or affect the normal development of the electoral process" from today until August 1, according to its version, allow the vote of one New constituent assembly.

Throssell recalled that Venezuela must respect international human rights law and therefore reiterated its "concern" over the fact that all demonstrations have been banned.

"That is why we call on the authorities to respect the right of citizens to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly," he said.

He added that the UN office is "deeply concerned about the risk of more violence in Venezuela in the framework of the Sunday elections" for the constituent.

He specified that "the wishes" of Venezuelans to participate or not in elections should be respected and that, although no one should be forced to vote, those who want to participate in the process must be able to do so.

That is why the spokeswoman appealed to those who oppose the election to do so in a "peaceful way."

"We are talking now because, given the extremely tense situation in Venezuela, we want to repeat our call for everyone to remain calm and express their opinions in a peaceful way," he said.

With respect to the new constituent process, Throssell said that the United Nations office was not positioning itself and that it merely denounced the tumultuous "context" in which these elections take place.

However, the spokeswoman added that "a constitutional amendment can only be carried out with a broad consensus and the participation of all sectors of society."

He also recalled the conclusions of the Venice Commission, the European consultative body on constitutional issues, which last week expressed the opinion that "the electoral process and norms of the constituent assembly contradict the Constitution of Venezuela of 1999"