Hundreds of people gathered several days ago outside a detention center known as “Zone 7” in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, huddled around lists of prisoners, as they clutched plastic bags filled with meals they had packed for the inmates inside.
Eager for information about their detained loved ones, many told remarkably similar stories of sons, daughters and siblings arrested riding motorbikes, walking home from work, coming out of a bakery or stopping by a relative’s house in the days following Venezuela’s disputed presidential election.
They described arrests both sweeping and selective.
And no one had been told what criminal charge their relatives faced.
The Venezuelan government has mounted a furious campaign against anyone challenging the declared results of the vote, unleashing a wave of repression that human rights groups say is unlike anything the country has seen in recent decades.
Organizations:
Venezuelan
Locations:
Caracas, Venezuelan