GENEVA, (Reuters) – The scrapping by Venezuela’s top court of an amnesty law that could have secured the release of jailed opposition activists was very disappointing as it could have been a step towards reconciliation, a U.N. human rights spokeswoman said yesterday.
The OPEC member is engulfed in a bitter political standoff that has worsened since the opposition coalition won control of the National Assembly in a December vote and vowed to seek President Nicolas Maduro’s exit this year.
Maduro had vowed to veto the amnesty law, which his opponents had said could benefit high-profile government adversaries such as Leopoldo Lopez, who was arrested in 2014 on accusations that he helped spur a wave of demonstrations that killed more than 40 people.
“It’s a very, very disappointing development,” Ravina Shamdasani told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva. “We would not like to believe that this is the end of the road. We would like to encourage all sides to explore further avenues for dialogue.”
Shamdasani said the Venezuelan government had asked the U.N. for a legal analysis of the law, and this had shown it largely conformed to international standards.
“It was a great move towards dialogue and reconciliation,” she said.
