A crush of Venezuelan government agents entered the home brandishing guns but not a warrant, and took Ariana Granadillo away. Over the next week, they confined, beat, interrogated and nearly suffocated her, then let her go as abruptly as they had taken her in. While her sister searched for her for days, unable to pry any word from officials, her captors told Ms. Granadillo, then 21, that they were counterintelligence agents. She had “never, ever, ever, ever been involved in politics,” she said in an interview, but she soon learned that her ordeal was not unusual. It was produced by Foro Penal, a Venezuelan group that meticulously tracks the cases and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

Source: International New York Times June 19, 2020 09:00 UTC