August 2 will always be in Yanire’s memory. On that day, her dream of seeing her son graduate from high school turned into the nightmare of seeing him be graduated as a terrorist. At one o’clock in the morning, when he was with his five-year-old brother, a group of state agents took him out of his house with a charge of terrorism-related crimes. They took him with a Venezuelan flag, a Spiderman mask and a toy gun with which his little brother played at being a hero. In tears, Yanire says that her 15-year-old son’s sin was to participate in the protests that took place in Venezuela after the announcement of the results of the 2024 presidential elections. As she cries, she says that there is no proof that her son participated in any terrorist activity. Today her son is at home, facing a judicial process and recovering from the facial paralysis left by the beatings and mistreatment he suffered in detention.

The story of Yanire and her son has been repeated by the hundreds in recent weeks in Venezuela. In response to the announcement of Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the presidential elections, thousands of people mobilized to the streets. The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS) registered 413 protests during the month of August, around 14 per day. Those who took to the streets to exercise their right to protest were branded as accomplices in an alleged terrorist conspiracy orchestrated from other countries against the Maduro regime. This unleashed a strategy of repression that has been widely documented by various organizations and has left nearly 1,824 people detained.

In Venezuela and other countries, the fight against terrorism has been used to stigmatize protest, create labyrinths of criminalization that have no way out and apply an almost magical formula of rights denial.

From protesting teenagers to terrorists without rights

In the post-electoral context, more than 150 children and adolescents have been arrested, of whom 70 are still deprived of their liberty. The charges? Incitement to hatred, obstruction of the public highway, destruction of public-private property and “terrorism”. 

In most cases the facts are similar. Teenagers went out to protest against elections that they perceived as unfair. In those known, moreover, there is no indication that they did anything other than demonstrate. Diego and Ray, aged 15 and 14, were accused by neighbors, without evidence, of having knocked down a statue in the context of the protests. Despite their relatives’ pleas and multiple letters showing their good behavior, they were taken from Carúpano to Caracas, approximately 665 kilometers away from their family. 

The experience of these children and adolescents deprived of their liberty is one of a permanent and continuous violation of their rights and dignity. They were deprived of their liberty without respect for their presumption of innocence or other basic guarantees of due process, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has pointed out.

The detention conditions to which they have been exposed are inhumane, in cells they must share with adults, without separation by gender and without any kind of protection. Lauriannys, 17, was detained on August 14. AFP reports that she “was taken to the municipal (jail) and spent the night in the hallway (…) the prisoners did not let her sleep, whistling at her and saying obscenities to her (…) She kept crying.” They have also been exposed to multiple cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment. This is the case of a young pregnant girl, who was told that she would be “made to have an abortion so as not to have terrorist children”. She was forced to perform exercises and put herself in uncomfortable and humiliating positions. A child on the autism spectrum deprived of liberty still has not seen his family or received medical attention. These conditions of confinement are neither appropriate nor acceptable for any adult person, and even less so for children and adolescents who have special protection under international law. They also violate the provisions of Venezuela’s Law for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (Ley de Protección de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes, Lopnna). 

The nightmare of Yanire and other families seeing their children, siblings and cousins deprived of their liberty and in inhumane conditions is made even worse by the feeling that these processes are a dead end. In the best Kafkaesque style, the judicial system is functioning without any humanity and closing the doors to a good defense. The Inter-American Commission has also found that these children accused of being “terrorists” have not been able to see their families and have not had access to trusted lawyers, as they have been assigned lawyers from the State.

Does “terrorism” justify it all?

The experience of these young people and their families in Venezuela is a story of criminalization of protest that is echoed in many democratic and non-democratic countries alike. This history of criminalization of protest is not isolated. It is part of an increasingly frequent use of the category “terrorist” to justify human rights violations and is associated with the so-called war on terror.

The international community began to concern itself with preventing and sanctioning acts that caused terror in the community, such as the hijacking of airplanes, as early as the 1970s. However, since the attack on the twin towers in the United States, what has been called a “war on terror” has been unleashed. This has included the expansion of international measures to prevent and confront it, but also military operations and diplomatic strategies. Although this war arose in response to very painful events, the lack of a clear definition of what terrorism is has generated more problems than solutions. Due to its diffuse contours and intrinsic ambiguities, it is increasingly used for political purposes against those who are uncomfortable, think differently, or those who are labeled as enemies of those in power. A war that increasingly justifies denying all rights.

The category “terrorist” is today an excuse to stigmatize and delegitimize diverse social struggles.  In Peru, for example, it is so often used that it has a popular name: “terruqueo”. This is used when political opponents or dissidents are labeled as being linked to terrorist organizations. Being a “terruco” is serious, not because these people are terrorists, but because it stigmatizes and isolates people as diverse as those who defend human rights, those who criticize government decisions or those who mobilize in the streets. Jo-Marie Burt points out, “The “terruqueo” has been used in the 22 years of democracy by the right wing to annihilate its political opponents, to delegitimize those who think differently, even to censor cultural expressions that question its hegemony.”  In other words, this political use of the terrorist category has no ideology, but it does have victims: those who protest, those who think differently.

The use of the word “terrorist” also criminalizes. Whoever enters the labyrinths of criminal justice through the door of terrorism-related crimes is unlikely to find justice. The case of these Venezuelan children and adolescents allows us a window into this punitive dead end. They arrive at the penal system without clear evidence against them, they are exposed to humiliation, to the almost certain possibility of being sentenced to penalties that will consume their lives and that, even if they are found innocent, they will live with one of the worst modern stigmas: being a terrorist. Pedro, 17, was watching a peaceful protest when he was arrested. He reports living in fear, even after his release.

This war against terrorism, scattered and increasingly present in our daily lives,  has also made us spectators of how an entire population in Palestine is killed without the international community taking decisive action and how children are getting lost in the labyrinths of criminalization with no way out.

The never-ending nightmare?

From left to right, in Latin America and globally, terrorism is a term widely used to frame contexts in which, almost by default, any violation of rights is justified. With this new wave of repression, Venezuela has established itself as one of the many countries where governments stigmatize and criminalize those who protest. Criminalizing children and adolescents who exercise this right crosses a line that should never have been crossed.

The nightmare of those who are unjustly accused of being terrorists is also a nightmare for human rights and democracy. Instrumentalizing the category of terrorist as a strategy to silence others denies the right to protest and degrades democracy by silencing dissenting voices and excluding those who have no other way to be heard in public debate. Stigmatizing and criminalizing those who protest as terrorists corrodes democracy. A country that cannot protest and does not protect its children has no democracy.