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RED VZLA Urgent Request to the OTP-3

REDACTED Page 55 of 190 Since May 2013, Maduro himself and high level public officials have openly denounced civilians perceived as dissidents and accused them of conspiracy and other related charges promising to use an iron fist against them and to put them all in jail. As such Maduro and members of his inner circle criminalized the civilians perceived as dissidents and targeted them for persecution. Maduro together with members of his inner circle and high level officials quickly designed a plan to identify those he perceived as dissidents, publicly label them to isolate, marginalise and target them using the various organs of the state including the national security forces and the pro governemtn armed paramilitaries under his de facto control. Using the approach designed under Chávez in 2004 while he was himself the President of the National Assembly, Maduro has expanded the Tascon list created to identify citizens who voted against the GoV or are not actively supporting the GoV by voting for it using official electoral records provided by the CNE. The Tascon list was initially created using official records from the CNE with signatures of individuals on electoral records to identify and create lists of names of individuals who are considered to be enemies of the state. The list created under Chávez, which contained 12 million names in 2005, was published on websites and distributed to the public sector through a software called the Maisanta programme with information on how the citizens had voted in earlier elections in order to target them for discrimination. The individuals listed as non cooperative would lose their jobs, be refused government services and discriminated against pursuant to the GoV’s policy. High level ranking government officials who were colleagues of Maduro at the time under the Chávez regime explicitly threatened retaliation against signatories of the 2004 recall referendum. The then Minister of Health Roger Capella stated to the press in March 2004 that health workers and doctors who had signed the recall referendum would be fired because it was “an act of terrorism”. He rectified his comment the next day but Chávez one year later himself publicly acknowledged the discriminatory purpose of the list stating that it was time to put it aside. The National Electoral Council also dismissed members of the municipal electoral councils by explicitly stating in dismissal letters that they were removed for having signed the recall referendum. Maduro who has now broadened this list of voters using his control of the CNE whose members elected by the National Assembly dominated by the PSUV majority. After Maduro’s election and rise to power for instance, the Venezolana de Television (VTV), published from April 12, 2013, the list of 25,000 people who have participated in activities relating to the mobilization of the opposition following the elections.

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