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On Sunday, September 1st, a video went viral on social networks showing how at least eight teenagers were leaving the Supreme Court of Justice of the state of Lara to meet their family. Dressed in gray and white, they walked through the door of the TSJ amidst the euphoric cries of their loved ones who were waiting to receive them. The celebration was transmitted in every tear, in every laugh and in every embrace between families who, for a month, did not know what would happen with the future of their children arrested in the framework of the “brutal repression against demonstrators and voters”.
#1S Del 29 de agosto al 1º de septiembre el @ForoPenal ha verificado ochenta y seis (𝟴𝟲) excarcelaciones (con restricciones) de adolescentes (entre 14 y 17 años de edad), detenidos desde el 29 de julio, en el contexto de las manifestantes postelectorales en Venezuela.… pic.twitter.com/V1GrdUExtf
— Foro Penal (@ForoPenal) September 1, 2024
That same Sunday, while the Penal Forum reported the release from prison of 86 of the 114 children and adolescents arrested after the July 28 elections, on social media, “#MaduroSecuestraNiños” gained momentum and became a trending topic until the early hours of September 3 in the conversation on X (formerly Twitter), with more than 340 thousand tweets; being the largest civil society-driven hashtag in recent months (if not years) and one of the most organic according to ProBox records.
Unlike the inorganic behavior documented in the officialism trends, where “troops” of people paid to amplify propaganda and State institutions are used to pollute the online conversation on a daily basis, under an inauthentic coordination for the positioning of disinformative narratives, the analysis around a sample of 998 tweets downloaded shows that 99.6% of the messages generated with this tag were made by accounts with real behavior.
While this is a small sample compared to the massive growth that occurred in the conversation, by manually reviewing the messages in X, it can be noted that there is no massive repetition of the same text over and over again as is often the case in manipulated trends.
This was not the only hashtag that gained momentum on September 01 talking about the topic, the English version, #MaduroKidnapsChildren, also positioned itself (although to a lesser extent) in the conversation on X with approximately 23 thousand tweets and an organicity percentage of 98%.
Both hashtags raise the denunciation to international entities, to visualize the arbitrary detentions of children and adolescents by the State to another public, using one of the few spaces available for denunciation in Venezuela: social media platforms.
Speaking out for minors online
International media, human rights organizations and the international community have been documenting and denouncing the systematic violation of human rights following the repression and arbitrary detentions after the 28J elections; making visible the cases of children and adolescents detained after the protests against the official results of elections questioned by most of the international community.
On August 30, the Government of Argentina, through a communiqué issued by its Foreign Ministry, condemned the illegal detentions of children and adolescents; that same day, BBC Mundo published a report on the testimony of one of the mothers of the more than 100 minors held in Venezuelan jails. For its part, the Foro Penal amplified the voice of the mothers who demanded the release of their children. One such mother was Carmen Morillo, who repeatedly called for the release of her daughter Victoria.
Carmen Morillo, Mother of Victoria, 16-year-old student and member of the symphony orchestra, arbitrarily detained in the context of the post-election demonstrations in Venezuela, calls for her daughter’s release.#LiberenAVictoria@ForoPenal pic.twitter.com/HqHSVwNKFK
— Foro Penal (@ForoPenal) August 14, 2024
Following the release of most of the children and adolescents detained by the security forces, opposition leader María Corina Machado sent a message on her networks using the hashtag #MaduroSecuestraNiños, reminding that there are still adolescents in Venezuelan jails.
“What this regime has done is unprecedented in Venezuela. #MaduroSecuestraNiños; it has violated their rights and dignity, separating them from their families and condemning to terror, not only these boys, but their parents and friends,” thus began the X thread posted by María Corina Machado at 5:35 pm on Sunday, September 01.
In her thread, Machado names at least four cases of adolescents who remain imprisoned following arbitrary detentions that, according to figures from the Foro Penal, have deprived 1,780 Venezuelans of their liberty, among them 114 minors.
In her messages using #MaduroSecuestraNiños, the opposition leader named the case of Victoria, a 16-year-old teenager who studies 5th year of high school, belongs to the Symphony Orchestra and attends a modeling and artistic makeup academy. “She was kidnapped on July 29 and subjected to forced disappearance. She was not allowed the defense of her lawyers.” However, subsequent to the tweet, the Foro Penal notified that Victoria was on the list of the 86 released teenagers.
#3S Carmen Morillo y su hija Victoria junto a Alfredo Romero, director del Foro Penal compartiendo la alegría de su libertad.
Victoria fue una de los más de 100 adolescentes detenidos desde el 29 de julio en el contexto de las protestas postelectorales en Venezuela, fue… pic.twitter.com/F1EwL9XvJ6
— Foro Penal (@ForoPenal) September 3, 2024
In addition to Machado, the hashtag #MaduroSecuestraNiños was promoted mainly by opposition political parties, citizens and journalists as an echo of the denunciation, to evidence this situation.
Not only children are kidnapped
The case of Isaías Jacob Fuenmayor González, 15 years old, is one of the most shocking to human rights defenders, precisely because he is a child.
Isaías Fuenmayor (15) left his home in San Francisco, Zulia state, around noon on July 29 to practice a dance with his friends for an upcoming party they had planned, his sister told Human Rights Watch.
On his way home, Isaías met some friends at a demonstration near the Mathías Lossada high school, which had served as a polling station the previous day. That same evening members of “colectivos”, (armed pro-government civilian groups that have committed widespread abuses, including killings, detentions, arbitrary prosecutions and harassment of critics, according to Human Rights Watch and the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela) attacked the demonstrators to quell the protest and shortly after 7:30 p.m., a bullet struck Fuenmayor Gonzalez in the neck.
Isaías was taken by motorcycle to the hospital Doctor Manuel Noriega Trigo, near the place of impact, where he died. His death certificate indicates that he died due to hemorrhaging caused by a gunshot wound to the neck.
But Isaías is not the only one. According to data from national and international NGOs, at least two dozen Venezuelans were killed in the framework of the post-election protests. One of them was 15 years old.
Fact VS Fiction: Does the revolution “love and protect” children?
Within the framework of Maduro’s influence operations and communication campaigns before, during and after the elections, children and adolescents have played an important role in his narratives.
ProBox identified accounts linked to the Instituto Autónomo Consejo Nacional de Derechos de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes (IDENNA), which had made 89 publications between July 20 and August 22 making use of the hashtag #MaduroPresidente, making electoral campaign, violating the regulations for being a governmental entity; as well as reinforcing its political stance, violating the constitution, by promoting Nicolás Maduro after the elections; especially because this institution declares itself “autonomous” although it is subscribed to Maduro’s Ministry of Popular Power for Communes and Social Protection.
In addition, in the framework of International Children’s Day, IDENNA published a campaign in favor of Maduro, also mentioning Cilia Flores, Diosdado Cabello and Delcy Rodríguez, using the hashtags #MaduroPresidente, #lopnna (the Organic Law for the Protection of Children and Adolescents), #venceremos, among others.
Then, on July 30, IDENNA published a communiqué, the narrative in the context of the post-election protests rejected the “illegal and indiscriminate use of children and adolescents for delinquency or criminal activities“, assuring that the necessary measures would be taken to “safeguard their integrity“. Labeling the main representatives of the ruling party in this post.
After the release of 86 minors detained in the protest, Attorney General Tarek William Saab assured that the releases were made in the framework of due process and were not generated by pressure from any agency.
“No NGO had anything to do with the freedom requests. Those are mercenary NGOs that are hunting for relatives of detainees to force them to be their lawyers and receive money for their defenses”, assured the prosecutor in a press conference, where he also said that the teenagers were detained for “violent acts” in which they confessed that “they were paid between 20 and 4o dollars”.
However, the reality is completely different.
According to what has been documented by human rights organizations, journalists and independent national and international media, the Venezuelan government has not only arbitrarily detained dozens of teenagers, but has also generated a pattern of intimidation and persecution through a massive campaign of doxxing, by publishing online, in order to threaten and intimidate, the personal information of these young people and other protesters, who were allegedly detained in the days following the presidential elections. Many of them did not even participate in the protests, but were detained for expressing their rejection of Nicolás Maduro through messages on their social media accounts.
The testimonies of relatives of teenagers behind bars are heartbreaking. Independent media such as Runrunes and La Vida de Nos have taken it upon themselves to tell some of these stories. Passing by the wrong place at the wrong time or daring to touch a pan was enough to be incarcerated.
The objective of the regime is clear: to generate fear in the general population, but especially in young people, who since July 29 and historically under dictatorships in Venezuela, have been among the main groups that have confronted the authoritarian power and have become a pillar of resistance against the outrages of Chavism.
In Venezuelan history, the different generations of young people have maintained the same fighting spirit, which has been transmitted from the generation of ’28, through the generation of 2007 and 2017, and inspiring the struggle for the return of democracy in Venezuela in the generation of 2024. These young people will be reflected in the books of our history as heroes of civil and political rights in the country.
Despite the release of the 86 adolescents (74 males and 12 females, in the range of 14 to 17 years old), there are still 28 adolescents deprived of liberty, in addition to the fact that several of the detained youths are subject to “periodic presentation in court”, as reported by Foro Penal.
