Human rights activist Romer Rubio, who lives in Chile and is the coordinator of a platform that brings together Venezuelan opposition parties.
He says he decided to check his passport in the government system after being alerted to the matter. He then claims to have found the word “annulled”, with red letters, in his account. The information is from the Venezuelan website La Patilla.
According to the opposition’s complaints, most of the annulled passports were issued last year, and the documents would be valid for ten years.
The measure taken by the regime comes at a time of repression and arrests of protesters and Venezuelan opposition leaders after the presidential election. The CNE (National Electoral Council) announced the victory of Nicolás Maduro, but the result has been questioned inside and outside Venezuela.
Maduro appeared before the Supreme Court on Friday to validate his disputed re-election. Meanwhile, the dictator continues to be the target of international pressure to release the minutes of the July 28 vote – the non-publication of the papers is pointed out as evidence of fraud by opponents and international observers.
Although the exact number of annulled passports is not yet known, the association Espaço Público, dedicated to promoting the rights of freedom of expression, said it had documented at least 16 cases, including of journalists.
To the Voice of America, a U.S. state news station, Rubio said that the Venezuelan regime seeks to introduce “a new form of exile.”
The Venezuelan media mentions other similar cases, such as that of activist and defender of the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community Yendri Velásquez, who on August 3 was detained for six hours at the Simón Bolívar de Maiquetía airport in Caracas. At the time, he had his passport annulled, according to the press.
On August 4, political science professor, poet and aid worker Edni López informed her partner that her passport appeared with the expired message in the official system in Maiquetía. Later, his family members and academic colleagues denounced his detention by military counterintelligence agents.
From August 5 to 6, Ecuadorian-based journalist Jefferson Díaz said that the passports of his wife, children, and his own had also been annulled. He said there was no official explanation for the move, although he suspected it was due to his reports on migration.
On August 6, the coordinator in Ecuador of the opposition Voluntad Popular Party, Luis Magallanes, also said that his passport had been annulled. He also said he had similar information from “many people” who are in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, all critical of the government, who also had their documents invalidated.
For Magallanes, the annulment of the document is a theft of his money. Applying for a new passport in Venezuela costs about $215 dollars (about R$1,100).
The human rights NGO Aula Abierta in Venezuela made a comparison between the recent cancellation of passports and similar practices in Nicaragua. The organization said that the arbitrary retention of documents represents a form of repression and harassment by the regime, especially in the electoral context.
According to the NGO, these actions are reminiscent of the repressive tactics employed by authoritarian regimes and constitute a violation of international norms.