A group of Venezuelans demanded Tuesday night in Times Square, in the center of New York, that the international community gathered at the UN General Assembly demand that President Nicolás Maduro close the “torture centers” operating in the Caribbean country. and release some 300 political prisoners.
To do this, fifty activists appeared in the busy square wearing black t-shirts and offered passersby the “experience” of entering through virtual reality glasses into the Helicoide, a detention center located in Caracas and that some describe as the center largest torture center in Latin America.
At the head of the group was Víctor Navarro, a journalist who directs the organization Voces de la Memoria and who, together with a team of 30 people who were political prisoners, like him, have designed this experience that recreates the terrible conditions of the cells and allows us to listen first-person testimonies.
“People are seeing and hearing torture, seeing how a political prisoner lives in the conditions in which Maduro is currently torturing in Venezuela,” Navarro told Efe, recalling how in 2018 agents from the intelligence service (SEBIN) raided his house and took him to Helicoide, where he spent five months.
“Every day is tortuous, because they seek to dehumanize the most intimate part of your being and you never know if you are going to get out: they play with your mind and torture you,” said the young man, who today has refugee status in Argentina and who went with others. Venezuelans arriving from different parts of the world to raise their voices in New York.