Venezuela Criticizes 'Politicized' UN Human Rights Report

The meeting between President Diosdado Cabello and heads of Commissions of the National Constituent Assembly in Caracas. | Photo: Reuters

The Venezuelan government has criticized a United Nations human rights report on the Latin American nation as "lacking technical rigor and objectivity."

"Venezuela categorically rejects the report regarding the alleged human rights situation in the country, published by the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as a result of a highly questionable methodology that buries the credibility and technical rigor demanded of an office of this nature, and violates the principles of objectivity, impartiality and non-selectivity," a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Relations said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Friday that "rule of law is virtually absent in Venezuela," after a report was published citing "shocking" accounts of alleged extrajudicial killings by state forces.

The Venezuelan government responded that "Mr Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein confirms his complicity with the multiform aggression that is underway against Venezuela, keeping silent in the face of the negative impact on the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights created by coercive, unilateral measures imposed by the United States of America and its servile allies in the region."

The statement also pointed out that all official information provided by the Venezuelan government has been excluded from the report, "in order to build a grotesque media farce on this matter."

The Foreign Ministry "reiterates its inescapable commitment to human rights" and its "willingness to continue cooperating with the organs of the United Nations system on issues of human rights, provided that the sovereignty of the country is respected and that it acts in accordance with rigor and truth."

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