Thank you very much, President.
Today, it is a very great pleasure for me to submit to Council for consideration the draught resolution on the human rights situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Draught L8 in its oral, orally revised version on behalf of the core group consisting of Argentina, Canada, Ecuador, Guatemala, Uruguay and my own country, Chile.
Since that, the two mandates of the Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights and of the Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela were renewed most recently by this Council in September 2022.
Both mechanisms have shown that they are extremely valuable and effective, particularly when it comes to monitoring serious human rights violations in Venezuela.
On the one hand, the Fact Finding Mission has continued to implement its mandate to collect information aiming to combat impunity and ensure full accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations and ensure there is access to justice for victims.
On the other hand, the Office has continued to provide technical assistance and capacity building in the country.
Although the work of the OHCHR has been seriously limited as a result of the unilateral suspension of activities by the authorities in February 2024, it has still continued to implement its mandate pursuant to instructions it received from this Council, and it hopes to be able to continue its to resume its work on the ground.
Both mandates are complementary to each other and regrettably, are still very much needed to ensure the international community to continue to tackle the progressive worsening of the human rights situation in Venezuela.
President, I now cede the floor to the Ambassador of Argentina.
We have borne witness to the crucial role of both the Office of the **** Commissioner and the Fact Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
We have seen the crucial role that they've played before, during and after the presidential elections that were held in Venezuela on the 28th of July.
And we have seen a worsening of human rights abuses and violations and a restriction of civic space and democratic space, which is unprecedented in the country.
This includes arbitrary killings and arbitrary detentions, which in some cases can constitute enforced disappearances.
We've seen disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officials and by armed groups, acts of intimidation, attacks, harassment, reprisals, public defamation against opposition leaders against peaceful demonstrators, journalists and other media workers against lawyers, human rights defenders against persons that have participated in the elections, indigenous persons and other stakeholders from civil society.
So all of this are added human rights abuses and violations committed against persons because they've exercised their human rights and fundamental freedoms on the Internet.
We've seen closures of communication, media surveillance, and shutting down of websites and digital platforms.
This is worsening A dramatic context and This is why we're proposing a draught resolution which aims to renew for a two year.
The mandates of OHCHR and the Fact Finding Mission.
This is a draught which has fifty additional Co sponsors at the moment and it's the outcome of several rounds of negotiation consultations with interested delegations and we have attempted to tackle all issues raised in a an honest and transparent manner.
We would call on delegations to support the draught resolution as tabled.
