Venezuela’s government has intensified efforts to curtail democratic freedoms with use of threats, surveillance and harassment as President Nicolás Maduro faces a re-election contest next year, U.N.-backed human rights experts reported on Wednesday.
An international fact-finding mission authorized by the Human Rights Council notes that violent repression between 2017 and 2019 eased after the coronavirus pandemic broke out the following year. That coincided with a drop in huge protests against the government. A report by the mission three years ago decried “crimes against humanity” in Maduro's Venezuela.
