Venezuelan general Vladimir Padrino López defended the conduct of soldiers and federal police during opposition protests which began in February, even while announcing to the channel Venevision that 97 officers and police were being investigated “for cruelty, for torture,” according to AFP. Padrino said that while excessive force may have been used by those members, none acted on orders from their superiors. “No soldier of ours has received the order to mistreat, harass or end the life of any Venezuelan,” he said, adding that those accused of torture represent “only 0.4 percent of the whole public force” made up of 92,000 agents.
“Of the 39 deaths, 26 of them have been from firearms, and when the public force goes out to contain [protestors] they go out without lethal arms,” Padrino said. He later added that he did not believe in what many in the opposition describe as the militarization of the country, saying public forces were facing “pressure and violence” from protestors attempting an “ongoing coup d’etat."
A UN special rapporteur on torture said in mid-March that the organization had received a host of reports of excessive force by police and soldiers in Venezuela, including “two or three” cases of “very severe” torture. The Foro Penal Venezolano, a human rights watchdog based in Venezuela, presented 59 cases of alleged torture by authorities to a group of South American ambassadors who visited the country late that same month.
Venezuela’s attorney general said on Friday that the death toll over the last two months of opposition protests had risen to 41, including nine police and military agents. Some 674 had been wounded and 175 detained, she said, while her office had opened 120 investigations into human-rights violations -- two for torture, two for attempted homicide, three for homicide and 113 for cruel treatment.
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