Venezuela: Repression taken into people's living rooms as home raids surge
The Venezuelan authorities have expanded their arsenal of repressive tactics by launching a vicious campaign of illegal home raids on citizens suspected of dissent, Amnesty International said in a new investigation published today.
Nights of terror: Attacks and illegal raids on homes in Venezuela reveals how Venezuelan security forces and government-sponsored civilian armed groups have violently broken into peoples homes in recent months as a way of intimidating them against taking part in demonstrations or any other form of protest.
In Venezuela, no place is safe from the twisted power of the security forces. Not even people´s homes, said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International. The Venezuelan authorities have found a new and disturbing way of stamping out dissent as part of a seemingly endless quest to instill fear into the population. They have taken street repression into peoples living rooms.
Local human rights organizations have collected reports of at least 47 illegal home raids in 11 districts across the country between April and July 2017 when demonstrations were at their height. More than 120 people were killed, nearly 2,000 were injured and more than 5,000 were arrested during this period.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/10/venezuela-allanamientos-ilegales-en-aumento-mientras-la-represion-llega-a-hogares/