Thank you.
I want to start by saying the following. When I got to this room, it hit me, I mean it's hard for me that I have to testify outside of my country in an institution that doesn't belong to Venezuela. I haven't had this opportunity in my country. Nobody in Venezuela has called me to hear my testimony. So this itself is an event that tells you what's going on there, that a Venezuelan person has to come to a different country to be heard by a foreign institution. Do you know what? It should happen in Venezuela. This is the first time that I have been in front an independent institution that will hear what I have to say and will treat my testimony in a fair way. I don't have that in Venezuela, and none of the Venezuelans have that.
I'm here as a victim of repression in Venezuela. I am the national political coordinator of Voluntad Popular, Popular Will, which is an opposition political party, the same party as Leopoldo Lopez. Leopoldo Lopez is the leader of my political party. I'm the second on board, and probably you are asking why I am here and Leopoldo is in jail. Well, I've been forced to leave my country. Last year, because of the economic and social problems...I don't know if you are familiar with our context but we have the highest inflation in the world. We have a tremendous problem of scarcity. Our poverty has increased in the last year, and the months to come will be even worse—even worse.
Last year we decided to urge the Venezuelan people to go to the streets peacefully to protest for their rights. The right to protest is in our constitution. It's a human right, and we called upon the Venezuelans to protest peacefully and within the constitution for their rights and to get a change in the government, because we were not happy with the Venezuelan situation. That's our role and that's what we were doing.
Well, the government decided to put Leopoldo Lopez in jail. That was the first order of arrest when the protest started last year.
The second one was against me, without reason, without any proof, just for a single element, because I think politically differently from the government. That's my sin. I had to resist three violent attempts of arrest against me. They went to the headquarters of my political party, in a violent manner, with weapons in their hands, with national guards, with the police force. I would say there were 300 armed people trying to catch me. They went without an order for arrest and without an allanamiento, an order to seize. They went to my political party without anything in hand. It was totally illegal. I had the chance to get out of that, but they didn't care about that. I went into hiding for 180 days in Venezuela during the protest trying to manage and handle that situation.
Then after those days, I had a conversation with my political party, and in a certain way, using other people, with Leopoldo. We were discussing what I should do. The political party considered that I had to leave my country to play an international role and to raise the voice in the international community in order to denounce what is happening in Venezuela now.
Let me tell you something. It was the most difficult decision I have ever taken as a human being. I couldn't understand why, in the middle of the 21st century, I had to leave my country for political reasons. That's not the country I want. It's not the country we deserve, and it's not the country that the region deserves. We cannot ignore that. We are talking about human rights. We are talking about democracy. Those are values that we need to preserve of our generation.
I had to leave my country and I cried. I cried because I couldn't understand this. But at the same time, it gave me strength. It gave me faith to keep up my fight to achieve the country that we want. I made this decision, and now I'm here in an international forum in order to denounce the violations of human rights in Venezuela and the social conflict we are having, especially the poor people, and also the decline of democracy in Venezuela.
I must say also that my political party has been attacked as never before in Venezuela. Five people from our political party are in jail. One of them is Leopoldo Lopez, the main leader. Another one is Daniel Ceballos, a mayor. He was elected through popular vote and was removed illegally through a four-hour illegal procedure. He's in jail. We also have a person who is an activist who is in jail without proof. We have two more people form my political party in jail.
Also, we have two orders for arrest, one against me and the other against another national member of my political party. We have documented more than 200 threats against our activists in Venezuela. Every single day we have statements in the public media and the private media from the top officers of the government against Voluntad Popular, our party, and against my person and against the main leader of my political party.
They are exposing us to public attacks every single day, and we don't have the opportunity to reply to those statements, because there is no freedom of speech in Venezuela. They control all the media in Venezuela. If I want to make a press conference, the only mechanism I have is Twitter.
This is what we have faced directly, but also, during this protest the government reacted in a brutal manner as never before, with more than 3,000 detentions. Right now 2,000 people, the majority of them students, have had open criminal trials, and they have severe limitations to their rights. For example, they cannot talk about politics, even about their cases. They cannot tweet. They cannot go to public protests in Venezuela. There are severe limitations, and they could be back in jail with just one decision from the government. Also we have documented, and the UN has issued a report about this, 150 cases of torture in Venezuela.
Also, during the protest, 43 people were killed. So far, we do not know what happened or who killed them. Impunity is there. The judicial branch has been used to impose repression in Venezuela.
In the case of Leopoldo, the main proof they have is supposedly an expert who interpreted Leopoldo's discourse saying that Leopoldo has superpowers and the capacity to influence people to commit crime. That's the main proof they have, if we can call that proof.
Leopoldo Lopez is in jail because of his ideas, because of his speeches. By the way, his speech was within the constitution. He was very clear. We need to protest but peacefully, within the constitution. That has been our fight in the last year. So that's where we are on that.
At the end of the day, what we have in Venezuela is not a democratic country. I won't get into the discussion of whether it is a dictatorship or not. I have my own concept about it. But something on which I don't have any doubt, and you should not have any doubt, is that there is a clear violation of human rights in Venezuela and you need to pay attention to that.
As Canadians you need to push your government to put its eyes on Venezuela, in the region, because that would cause instability in the region. You need to raise awareness about the Venezuelan situation. You also need to work with the multilateral organizations such as the UN and OAS in order to put Venezuela on the agenda, particularly regarding the violation of human rights. We need to stop the violation of human rights. We need to stop violators of human rights.
I understand that the Venezuelan problem will be solved by Venezuelans. I'm clear on that. But we need the engagement of international communities to help us restore democracy in Venezuela and restore the democratic coexistence.
I think that in the 21st century the value of democracy, the value of human rights, will be preserved in the future if this generation, the people who are here sitting at this table, do something about it. In the future, your family, your sons, will be very proud of what you have done and what we have done together.
Thank you very much.