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RED VZLA Urgent Request to the OTP-3

REDACTED Page 33 of 190 following a protest in Valencia, Carabobo, on 13 February Juan Manuel Carrasco was tortured and raped using a gun,91 and Gloria Tobon, was beaten and threatened with electric shocks applied to her arms, breasts and genitals by National Guard officers after her arrest on 19 March. A total of 3,351 people were arrested during the protests since February 2014, of which 1,402 are confronting allegations of crimes committed during the protests.92 It is alleged that all of the detentions whether the arrests were legal or not became illegal as a result of the absence of due process of which the suspects have been subjected to, including incommunicado detention, denial of access to legal assistance, to inform family members and violation of right to be informed of charges. Several NGOs (most notably “Foro Penal Venezolano”) have systematically denounced the manipulation of evidence in the cases against protestors by the National Bolivarian Police.93 Members of the police have been reported to have visited hospitals to demand the doctors to hand them the bullets that they extracted from the wounded demonstrators.94 Another reputed local NGO “Centro de Derechos Humanos de la UCAB” denounced that most of the students detained on the 12th February 2014 where detained incommunicado and were denied access to legal assistance.95 As a consequence and given the overall GoV’s policy to target dissent, it is alleged that the 1,402 individuals currently being prosecuted are being targeted through false, malicious and abusive charges as will be detailed below. 91 EL UNIVERSAL. (2014) Estudiante ratificó denuncia de violación con fusil. El Universal. [Online] 26 February. Available from: http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/protestas-en- venezuela/140226/estudiante-ratifico-denuncia-de-violacion-con-fusil [Accessed 22 October, 2015]; Later The National Prosecuter’s Office said that he wasn’t rape: ALBA CIUDAD. (2014) Fiscalía determinó que Juan Manuel Carrasco no fue víctima de violación en Carabobo. Alba Ciudad. [Online] 24 February. Available from: http://albaciudad.org/wp/index.php/2014/02/fiscalia-determino-que- no-hubo-caso-de-violacion-en-carabobo/ [Accessed 22 October, 2015] 92 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, (2015) Venezuela submission the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Amnesty International. [Online] 3 June. Available from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr53/1769/2015/en/ [Accessed 23 October, 2015] pp.22-23 93 PEÑALOZA, P.P. and ALONSO, F. (2014) Afirman que policía manipuló pruebas para no ser incriminada. El Universal. [Online] 15 February. Available from: http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional- y-politica/140215/afirman-que-policia-manipulo-pruebas-para-no-ser-incriminada [Accessed 23 October, 2015] 94 NTN24. (2014) Policía venezolana acude a hospitales para pedir balas extraídas a heridos, según abogado defensor de DD.HH. Nuestra Tele Noticias. [Online] 1 July. Available from: http://ntn24online.co/video/policia-venezolana-acude-a-hospitales-para-pedir-balas-extraidas-a- heridos-segun-abogado-defensor-de-3785 [Accessed 22 October, 2015] (includes video) 95 Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB), Centro de Derechos Humanos, “Que no quede ni rastro”, especially section 2. Available at: http://w2.ucab.edu.ve/tl_files/CDH/Lineastematicas/Que%20no%20quede%20rastro%20Informe.p df

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