Human rights experts from the United Nations (UN) reiterated this Friday that the unilateral coercive measures imposed against countries are causing suffering and deaths amid the COVID-19 pandemic, so they renewed the call for them to be lifted or urgently suspended.
“The sanctions that were imposed in the name of defending human rights are in fact killing people and depriving them of fundamental rights, including the rights to health, food and life itself”, said Alena Douhan, special rapporteur of the UN on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, together with other experts on the matter from the multilateral organization.
She specified that sanctions are bringing suffering and deaths in countries such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, and that humanitarian exemptions to these “do not work” amid the global health crisis.
Unilateral coercive measures “must be lifted, or at least alleviated, so that people can get basic items like soap and disinfectants to stay healthy, and so hospitals can get ventilators and other equipment to keep people alive”, the experts insisted.
The People’s Power Minister for Foreign Relations, Jorge Arreaza, shared on his Twitter account @jaarreaza the press release that includes the concern of the “UN Special Rapporteurs on Coercive Measures, Health, Food, Extrajudicial Executions and the Independent Expert on International Solidarity.”
“They denounce that the sanctions are deadly, much more in a pandemic, and they demand them to be lifted”, said the Venezuelan Foreign Minister.
Importante comunicado de Relatores Especiales de la ONU sobre Medidas Coercitivas, Salud, Alimentación, Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales y el Experto Independiente sobre Solidaridad Internacional.
— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) August 7, 2020
Denuncian que las sanciones son mortales, mucho más en pandemia y exigen levantarlas pic.twitter.com/SNkp8FQLlG
The other experts who from the UN-Geneva, in Switzerland, subscribe to the statement are Obiora Okafor, independent expert on human rights and international solidarity; Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Physical and Mental Health; Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and Agnès Callamard, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions.
Since 2014, Venezuela has been the object of more than 300 unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States and satellite countries, which, far from diminishing, have increased in the context of the pandemic, such as the refusal this year by the International Monetary Fund to approve the request for resources from its Emergency Fund and the arbitrary retention of gold reserves deposited in custody in the Bank of England, among other actions that undermine the strategy of containment, care and prevention of COVID-19 in the South American country.