A/HRC/45/33 Penal describes a “revolving door” phenomenon in cases, in which some people are detained as other people are released, so that the number of detainees remains somewhat fixed over time.5 26. Starting in 2014, the first wave of targets included people affiliated with the La Salida protests and associates. Among them were leaders of opposition parties, opposition mayors, human rights activists, social media users, student leaders and people perceived to be on the front line of demonstrations. The repression extended to political leaders and others taking critical stances against the Government during the 2017 and 2019 political crises. 27. Six opposition mayors were detained between April 2014 and December 2017, for periods ranging from 72 hours to over four years, under charges including rebellion, conspiracy and omission of acts to prevent public disorder. The families of opposition mayors have also faced attacks. 28. In December 2015, after the opposition won a majority of seats in the National Assembly, opposition parliamentarians became a focus of repression. The targeting of opposition parliamentarians was ongoing at the time of writing. Since 2014, the Supreme Court has requested that the immunity of 32 National Assembly parliamentarians be lifted, allowing them to be criminally prosecuted. The Supreme Court made the vast majority of these requests to the National Constituent Assembly, although under the Constitution (art. 200), the National Assembly is the body responsible for lifting parliamentary immunity. 29. In 28 of these decisions, the Supreme Court accused parliamentarians of being in a permanent state of committing crimes in flagrante delicto of treason against the homeland, conspiracy, instigation of insurrection, civil rebellion, contempt of court and hate crimes. Six National Assembly members were then arrested and detained, with all but one held for over two years. 30. People associated with National Assembly members and/or with opposition parties were also detained. During interrogations, they were questioned about deputies, particularly about their involvement in alleged conspiracies or other crimes against the Government. 31. Since 2017, there have been a series of arrests of current and former military officials allegedly involved in rebellions or coup attempts to oust the Government of President Maduro. As alleged conspiracies increased, the number of acts of counter-intelligence operations against them also increased. The number of operations and coups d’état planned – or alleged to have been planned, according to high-level Government officials – grew from 3 between 2014 and 2016, to at least 16 between 2017 and 2020. 32. Beginning in 2018, civilians linked to the military targets, such as family, friends and associates, also increasingly became victims of repression, including those who might know the whereabouts of the accused and relatives of military members. 33. On 31 August 2020, President Maduro pardoned 110 people, mainly members of the political opposition, who had been accused of committing criminal acts. 6 2. Violations 34. The mission finds reasonable grounds to believe that arbitrary detentions were used to target individuals based on their political affiliation, participation, views, opinions or expression, throughout the period under review. In the cases investigated, a number of detainees were also victims of short-term enforced disappearances and acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, at the hands of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service and the Directorate General of Military Counter-intelligence. 35. The violations involved individuals at different institutional and hierarchical levels. Key institutional actors within the executive, the law enforcement and intelligence services, and the judiciary played a role. 5 6 https://foropenal.com/la-puerta-giratoria-de-los-presos-politicos-en-venezuela/ (in Spanish). www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUzrg5DeJ3U (in Spanish). 5