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Venezuela South America Torture Violence
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Analysis Report

Political police torture in Caracas (Venezuela)

Electric shocks, beatings, waterboarding, asphyxiation with chemicals... A report denounces these practices.

Electric shocks, beatings, waterboarding, asphyxiation with chemicals… The Venezuelan government, engulfed in an endless political crisis, reacts to protest movements with torture and arbitrary detentions. The Venezuelan NGO “A Window to Freedom” denounces these practices in its latest report (in Spanish).

Living conditions could amount to an inhuman and degrading treatment: lack of access to health care, poor hygiene, limited food rations, restriction of the right to visits, and longterm solitary confinement for some.

It describes living conditions in the two institutions of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin) –the political police of the country– located in Caracas:

  • The Helicoide can accommodate 80 people, but nowadays hosts 340 (which represents an occupancy rate of 350%). About 80% of detainees are considered political prisoners.

  • The seat of the Sebin, in Plaza Venezuela, has seven cells to accommodate seven people. It is known as “The Tomb” because it is underground and kept at very low temperatures. Detainees are subjected to continuous isolation and various tortures, physical and psychological. Three people are currently detained at this facility.

Some people are detained without a warrant; others are still there despite having received an order for release.

Witnesses say tortures are carried out by high-ranking officers. Sessions take place in separate locations but close to detention cells; presumably in the offices of the Directorate of Instruction and Counter Intelligence. These premises are not in sight of the detainees but they can hear their fellow inmates yell during the night.

According to attorney Gonzalo Himiob, the prosecution has not engaged legal actions in any of the files relating to acts of torture in Sebin’s headquarters.

Living conditions could amount to an inhuman and degrading treatment: lack of access to health care, poor hygiene, limited food rations, restriction of the right to visits, and longterm solitary confinement for some.

However, inmates are doing everything they can to stay there. They are aware that their situation would be much worse if they were transferred to an institution administered by the Ministry of the Prison Service.

Rodolfo Gonzalez was found hanged in his cell on 12 March 2015. He had recently learned that he would be transferred to the Yare prison with other fellow inmates. These facts reveal how deeply deteriorated the prisons of this country are.

To find out more about the prison conditions in the Sebin institutions, read the full report “The human rights situation in the cells of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin), Helicoide and Plaza Venezuela”, by the NGO “A Window to Freedom”. (in Spanish).

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