Post-Maduro Venezuela has kept 'repressive apparatus': UN experts

UN investigators say Venezuela has seen fewer detentions and disappearances, but its repressive security structures remain largely unchanged.

Venezuela has maintained a "repressive apparatus" responsible for illegal detentions and disappearances despite improvements in human rights since the United States detained longtime leader Nicolas Maduro, UN investigators said Wednesday.

UN investigators say Venezuela's security and intelligence structures remain largely unchanged despite recent human rights improvements. (Representational Photo/Unsplash)

The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela said it had seen "a significant decline in long-term detentions and related enforced disappearances" since US forces swooped to seize Maduro on January 3.

It added however that while many political detainees had been released and there was greater scope for political gatherings, "these changes have not been accompanied by the institutional reforms required to ensure a meaningful and sustained improvement in the human rights situation".

"Numerous laws used to criminalise dissent remain in force," the mission said in a statement as it prepares to hand its report to the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.

"And the country's extensive intelligence services and security forces retain essentially the same structures, policies and practices."

It said no moves had been made to dismantle the "colectivos" -- pro-government armed groups that the investigators called a "central component" of the state's repressive apparatus.

And at least 19 officials are still in work despite being accused of violations, the investigators said.

"The reduction in some of the harshest forms of repression is notable, but it does not yet amount in any way to a transformation of the system that made them possible," said mission leader Sofia Macher.

Macher said the improvement was "fragile and reversible".

Maduro, 63, is now in detention in New York facing charges of trafficking tonnes of cocaine into the United States.

The ruling Chavismo party is to start a new round of talks with opposition groups this week on the post-Maduro transition.

After talks last month, the Venezuelan presidency announced the release of 131 political prisoners, though NGOs were only able to confirm around 80 releases and estimate over 300 remain detained.

About 100 relatives of political prisoners marched on the Miraflores palace of acting leader Delcy Rodriguez last Friday in a rare protest demanding that more political detainees are released.