This document summarizes a number of AI’s concerns in Venezuela. They include: torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects, sometimes resulting in death; the holding of detainees in preventive detention for up to eight days, during which the police are entitled to collect incriminating evidence, including confessions (some people appear to have been held incommunicado, which is prohibited by the Venezuelan constitution); reports of killings of criminal suspects by members of the security forces, e.g. Jose William Guerra Ortiz, Jose Salas Mendoza, Gabriel Antonio Martin Salaverria, Kirk Garcia; killings in the context of demonstrations, e.g. Raul Contreras and Wilmer Alfredo Freites; impunity; prison conditions; administrative detention; and trial procedures.
