Caracas Chronicles

Some shirts with the image of a statue of Hugo Chávez being vandalized. Some WhatsApp messages complaining about delays in the delivery of household gas. These reasons led four Venezuelans to prison for “hate crimes.” This October they were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison by state courts, in quick trials and with no guarantees of due process.

At the same time, Nicolás Maduro asked to create a tool for people to report “everything they see, everything they hear” 24 hours a day, where the National Armed Forces, the Communal Militia Units and the Popular Bases of Comprehensive Defense must “participate.” It’s easy: the users of VenApp, which was initially launched to report incidents in communities, can now click on the new sections such as “terrorism” or “drone observation” to provide reports related to anything anyone does that could help the U.S. Army to take over Venezuela.

Experts consulted by La Hora de Venezuela agree that these orders from Maduro contribute to aggravating the climate of censorship and fear imposed after the 2024 presidential elections. Along with arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture and the isolation of detainees, this “network” of messages helps the ruling PSUV party keep the “internal enemy” at bay.

“Along with convictions,” says Martha Tineo, lawyer and coordinator of NGO Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, “we see the relaunch of apps to report people, which had already been applied in the 2024 post-electoral context. Faced with such an ambiguous law (Ley Contra el Odio, or Law Against Hatred), authorities can consider that a person committed a crime through that anonymous complaint.”

“This is another step in a policy of political persecution, criminalization of dissent, to generate a climate of silence and fear.”

Tineo points out that chavismo created an entire legislative “scaffolding” of “absolute discretionality” that violates constitutional norms and guarantees. The persecution not only affects political dissidents but destroys the entire social fabric.

After making a critical comment about the Maduro government in a private WhatsApp chat, Verónica Andreína Rojas Soto, 44, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Sociologist Lexys Rendón, director of Laboratorio de Paz, asserts the Maduro regime launched “a generalized systematic pattern of state action against anyone who dissents” after the 2024 elections. “People are persecuted for what they say, for what they think, for what they express. Dissent and criticism are perceived as activities of internal enemies, as a person who is suspected of treason, or plotting to break the order.”

The ultimate reason: so that there is no dissidence.

“It is discretionary, it has very broad effects on the physical and emotional integrity and freedom of people… People are afraid to give their opinion, they are afraid to say things that put them in the focus of a reprisal as horrendous as 10 years in prison or being in limbo in a limbo while in jail, and this has been intentional. It has been a response and keeps moving forward. That’s where these applications serve their purpose of social control.”

Tightening social control

The 2024 elections brought with them a rapid and continuous deployment to quell the sources of protest against electoral fraud. More than 2,200 people, including teenagers, were detained under accusations of terrorism, conspiracy or hatred, mostly by anti-terrorism courts in Caracas. Imposition of public defense, isolation in “maximum security” prisons or in conditions that could be considered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, in addition to the denial of medical assistance, have marked post-election repression.

In parallel, chavismo has gradually but systematically arrested activists, political leaders, allies from electoral structures, human rights defenders and journalists. Likewise, laws have been approved to weaken civil society organizations. A constitutional reform is being designed to strengthen the “communal state.”

“The control established by the state, from July 28, 2024, until now, has been advancing to limit the capacity not only of organization but also of freedom of expression and information,” says Lexys Rendón. “That is why they arrested journalists like Nakary Ramos, or economists who at one point began to say the real price of U.S. dollars in the parallel, non-official market that exists.”

“Everyone knows there is no rule of law in Venezuela at this point. Anything you say can make you a target of retaliation, surveillance and control. At least for those who remain in the country, the truth is not known. The truth is the truth of the state,” Rendón continues.

Recent ‘hatred’ convictions

Several convictions for hate crimes have been registered during 2025. On February 25, Judge Luis Ovalles issued a 15-year sentence against Encuentro Ciudadano activist Nelson Piñero, detained since November 2023. He remains behind bars in Tocorón prison.

Marcos Palma Martínez was sentenced in September to 15 years in prison. He had been arrested on January 6 after sending a WhatsApp voice note complaining about delays in the delivery of domestic gas cylinders in his community and warning of a possible protest on the old Caracas–Los Teques highway

“We understand that the application of the Law Against Hatred tends to produce what we call exemplary punishments,” says human rights defender Martha Tineo.

On July 17, Génesis Gabriela Pabón Paredes and Rocío del Mar Rodríguez Guillén were sentenced to 10 years in prison for inciting hatred. Their offense? PNB officers arrested them for printing T-shirts with the now-famous image of a toppled Hugo Chávez statue.

After making a critical comment about the Maduro government in a private WhatsApp chat, Verónica Andreína Rojas Soto, 44, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison. That sentence was issued on October 1, the same day she was transferred to the INOF women’s prison in Los Teques, where Rojas is based. Since July, Rojas had been held in a police station in El Valle, western Caracas.

Randal Glendysmar Telles Peña, 22, was sentenced on October 14 to 15 years in prison for inciting hatred. The excuse here was a video about the government created with artificial intelligence. Her mother said that an expert testified at trial confirming Telles was neither the author nor the person responsible for uploading the video to social media platforms like TikTok.

Lawyer Martha Tineo recalls that the so-called Law Against Hatred is a “blank” criminal instrument, since it does not clarify what it refers to or how hate is defined for the purposes of its application.

“It is an ambiguous law, which grants absolute discretion and alarming arbitrariness to domestic judges when applying it,” Tineo points out.

“Not only does it censor and criminalize rights that are fundamental, but we understand that its application also tends to produce what we call exemplary punishments,” Tineo continues. “That is, me and other members of the society who see this type of abuse refrain from expressing ourselves, from expressing our opinion freely, because there is a collective silence from the moment we notice that those who express themselves peacefully can be condemned.”