Venezuela's state security agencies repress oppositions through arbitrary arrests, torture -UN

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro looks on as he meets Colombia's ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti at the Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela August 29, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo

(Reuters) - Venezuela's state security agencies use arbitrary arrests and torture, which represent crimes against humanity, to repress the country's opposition in a plan directed by President Nicolas Maduro, according to a United Nations report published on Tuesday.

The report, produced by the U.N. independent international fact-finding mission on Venezuela, found that both Venezuela's general office of military counterintelligence (DGCIM) and the Bolivarian national intelligence service (SEBIN), used sexual- and gender-based violence to torture and humiliate detainees since at least 2014, and continue to do so.