In recent days, images of the modern sports complex have gone viral on social networks, which would serve as an alternate headquarters for the Capital District Spartans team during the season of the Venezuelan Professional Basketball Super League (SPB), which started on May 1.
The court, named General Mayor Elio Estrada Paredes Gymnasiumin “honor” of the current commander general of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) and vice minister of the Integrated Police System (Visipol), accused by the United Nations (UN) of committing human rights violations, became “ one of the most modern” in the South American country after a remodeling in 2022.
Located under the white polygonal dome of El Helicoide, site of confinement for hundreds of political prisoners of the Chavista regime and also headquarters of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), it has a capacity for 1,000 people, with state-of-the-art lighting, sound and LED screens.
“Absolute horror”
“This is an absolute and complete horror.”said Rafael Uzcátegui, human rights defender and director of the NGO Peace Laboratory, in reference to the new headquarters of the SPB.
He highlighted that “while the players score at the top, On the lower floors they ‘turn on the electricity’ and ‘fill the tubes with water’ for the interrogations” of the political prisoners, who have denounced all types of torture, cruel and inhuman treatment in the detention center, some political prisoners have not emerged alive.
The incorporation of this sports space to the Basketball Super League was announced in February 2023. It was going to serve as the pavilion of the newly created Pioneros del Ávila team, next to the United Nations Park, in El Paraíso (west of Caracas) and some time later it was announced which would function as the alternate headquarters of the José Joaquín “Papá” Carrillo Gymnasium, in Parque Miranda (east of the capital).
The news of a modern sports facility full of sponsors caused criticism, indignation and repulsion on social networks, where users recalled that the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) operates there, which has been recognized by international organizations as a center of torture and human rights violations.
Silence the screams of the tortured
“As the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet did in the National Stadium of Santiago, today The dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro intends to silence the screams of those tortured in El Helicoide with chants from sports fans. They are sadists, they enjoy and make fun of pain,” wrote Elisa Trotta, former ambassador of Juan Guaidó’s interim government to Argentina.
For her part, Molly de la Sotta, sister of political prisoner Captain Luis de la Sotta, stated that with this the regime is trying to “normalize even torture.” “They play on the blood of the tortured, the tears of those arbitrarily detained and the pain of the relatives of the victims of forced disappearance. and extrajudicial murders, directed from El Helicoide,” he stressed.
Club Owner
Tamara Suju, director of the Casla Institute, indicated that the owner of the Spartans Basketball Club is Leonel García, current head of the Strategic Intelligence Division (DIE) and second commander of the Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions (DAET) of the PNB.
Created in 2022, the DAET, in accordance with the UN Verification Mission on Venezuela, executes the practices of human rights violations committed by the Special Action Forces of the National Police (FAES), eliminated by the Venezuelan dictatorship following the UN recommendations.
In this organization, the student John Álvarez, released last December after the exchange of political and American prisoners in exchange for Alex Saab, designated as Maduro’s front man, was tortured. The young man lost vision in his left eye during his confinement.
“While they (the regime) have fun in the leadership of El Helicoide with their ‘undertakings’ and make the officials work for them, Below, in the torture dungeons, are the political prisoners of the dictatorship”Suju highlighted.
El Helicoide, the largest torture center
Nicolás Maduro’s regime has detained 15,812 people for political reasons since 2014, when the first anti-government protests began, until December 2023, according to figures from the NGO Foro Penal. Currently, according to this organization’s count, In Venezuela there are 273 political prisoners126 civilians, 20 women and 147 military personnel.
In El Helicoide, designed as an architectural icon in 1958 and which ended up becoming the most feared detention and torture center of the dictatorship, around 70 political prisoners are held. Among them, the lawyer and human rights activist, Rocío San Miguel; the director of the NGO FundaRedes, Javier Tarazona; and the heads of the political movement of the opposition María Corina Machado, Dignora Hernández and Henry Alviárez, who are isolated and without access to private defense.
This facility, recognized by international human rights organizations as a center of repression and torture, has cells, offices, isolation rooms and small spaces that look like bathrooms, which, according to complaints from former political prisoners, are used to carry out torture.
Torture cells
In its facilities there are punishment cells called “Infiernito”, “Guarimbero”, “Las Escaleras”, “El Tigrito” and “Bañito”, where political prisoners such as activist Lorent Saleh, detained for the 2014 protests, were tortured; and the political leader Juan Requesens, imprisoned for participating in an alleged drone attack against Maduro.
According to the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, SEBIN’s pattern of torture includes suffocation with plastic bagschemicals or a bucket of water, hits with blunt objects, electric shocks on the genitals or other parts of the body, threats of deathof additional violence or rape against the victim and/or their family members, forced nudity, even in rooms kept at extremely low temperatures and chainings for long periods of time, among other atrocities.
Furthermore, several political prisoners have died during their confinement in El Helicoide. Among them, General Raúl Isaías Baduel, former Minister of Defense of Hugo Chávez, who reportedly died in the cell that he shared with his son on October 12, 2021; and Rodolfo Pedro González Martínezknown as The Aviator, found dead on March 12, 2015, after allegedly having “committed suicide.”
Source: With information from NTN24 / El Nacional / Social networks
