The IACHR denounced new human rights violations in Venezuela

The body warned about arbitrary detentions, lack of medical care and restrictions against opponents of the Venezuelan government.

On May 5, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), through Resolution 35/26, granted precautionary measures to Carmelo De Grazia, Daniel De Grazia and Levin De Grazia after considering that they are in a serious and urgent situation, having concluded that their rights to life, health and personal integrity could suffer irreparable harm in Venezuela.

According to IACHR information, Carmelo De Grazia and Daniel De Grazia have reportedly been deprived of their liberty since April 19, 2024, without receiving adequate medical care and under inadequate detention conditions. Levin De Grazia, meanwhile, reportedly remains under house arrest and is allegedly subjected to harassment by state officials. For its part, the Venezuelan State did not provide the IACHR with information on the situation reported.

The Commission stressed that the adoption of precautionary measures does not prejudge future complaints or investigations related to alleged human rights violations in Venezuela.

The IACHR took its demand regarding political prisoners in Venezuela to the OAS

In early May, the Commission called before the Organization of American States (OAS) for the full release of all political prisoners and demanded that the Venezuelan State provide transparency and allow a visit to detention centers “with unrestricted access.”

Along these lines, the president of the IACHR, Edgar Stuardo Ralón Orellana, in a statement read before the OAS Permanent Council, said that “The arbitrary deprivation of liberty on political grounds is one of the most serious expressions of the collapse of the rule of law. In Venezuela this is not an isolated excess: it is a sustained and deliberate State policy.”

He therefore demanded that all arbitrary detention must cease “immediately” and also called for the full release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Venezuela, since partial releases do not exhaust the State's obligations.

Ralón Orellana also called for “full and verifiable access to public information” and “official lists of persons detained, prosecuted and granted amnesty, with names and procedural status,” as well as “absolute protection against torture and structural reforms that guarantee non-repetition and the restoration of democracy.”

The IACHR also renewed its urgent request for a visit with unrestricted access to detention facilities in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and stated that the Commission is willing to cooperate, but that the Venezuelan State must respond accordingly.

International bodies have made various demands of Venezuela on the grounds that there can be no full human rights without full democracy.

For its part, the IACHR warned that the situation of people detained for political reasons in Venezuela is not “an isolated excess,” but rather a sustained and deliberate State policy.

The president of the IACHR explained that, based on the more than 300 victim testimonies gathered by the Special Follow-up Mechanism for Venezuela (MESEVE), they concluded that “the evidence is overwhelming” regarding the situation of political prisoners in the country.

Through MESEVE, the Commission held some 30 thematic hearings to follow up on the cases. They noted that “In 2025 alone we granted 36 precautionary measures, most of them to people deprived of their liberty for political reasons: human rights defenders, journalists, relatives of detainees and, in several cases, entire families.”

In this regard, the Commission warned that as of April there were reportedly 454 people detained for political reasons, including one adolescent, 44 women, 286 civilians and 186 military personnel. This is, however, a lower figure than the more than 2,062 politically motivated detentions documented by civil society organizations in the second half of 2024.

At the same time, Ralón Orellana noted in his document presented to the OAS that “enforced disappearance, torture, prolonged incommunicado detention and the denial of medical care persist,” a series of circumstances he linked to the “at least 18 people” who died “in State custody.”

The president of the IACHR reported that he has taken note of the Amnesty Law that Venezuela's executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, declared concluded at the end of April 2026 after it had benefited, according to the Venezuelan government, more than 8,600 people who had reportedly obtained “full freedom.”

On the other hand, the head of the Commission insisted that social and human rights organizations recorded only 186 cases of full release, while 554 people remain subject to precautionary measures.

Both the IACHR and other international bodies and human rights organizations observe with concern that the people released under the Amnesty Law remain under a kind of “supervised freedom,” since they are still subject to conditions such as “a ban on leaving the country, a ban on demonstrating or speaking to the press.”

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia