:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/grupoclarin/6QRRE7GX2VCB7KVYFDNZHOCKJQ.jpg "demand dismissal of criminal proceedings against the 33 detainees in alleged sex party")
CARACAS (AP) — Several Venezuelan human rights organizations on Friday demanded the dismissal of the criminal proceedings against 33 people arrested last week during a raid on a venue frequented by the gay community.
The activists, including defenders of the LGTBIQ community, went to the headquarters of the Attorney General’s Office in Caracas to denounce the “policy of persecution by the State” against the gay community.
They demanded the opening of an investigation into the officials who carried out the arrests last week in a place in the city of Valencia, some 150 kilometers west of the capital, after a complaint from some neighbors that a group of people was participating in a alleged sex party.
“We are denouncing the aggravation and escalation of a policy of persecution,” Yendri Velásquez, activist and coordinator of the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence, rejected before the press. He stressed that “arbitrariness based on prejudice” is being committed.
In a letter delivered to the Prosecutor’s Office, the organizations demanded the dismissal of the criminal case, but also that an investigation file be opened against the prosecutor and the judge in the case.
Spokesmen for the Attorney General’s office were not available for comment.
The humanitarian organization Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Program (Provea), one of the most important in the country, insisted in a statement on the “cessation of criminalization, harassment and extortion of LGBTIQ people.”
The complaint came two days after a control court in the city of Valencia charged the detainees with the alleged crimes of “indecent outrage”, “grouping (illegal association to commit crimes)” and “sonic pollution”.
However, the court ordered the immediate release of 30 of them under the regime of periodic presentation before the judicial instance. The other three detainees – the owner of the premises and two of his employees – were released on bail on Thursday, after complying with the presentation of guarantors.
Some of the people who accompanied the activists to the headquarters of the Prosecutor’s Office carried signs that read: “No more, no less, equal rights.”
Despite the fact that the South American country was one of the first countries in the world to establish civil marriage in January 1873, the legalization of the union of two people of the same sex, among other issues of legal protection or recognition of the LGTBIQ community, it has been postponed for years.