Venezuela’s Maduro urges UN to back release of migrants

Audio By Carbonatix

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro this week spoke to the United Nations’ Secretary General Antonio Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to urge UN support for the release of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States to a notorious El Salvador prison, the Venezuelan government said on Friday.

The mid-March deportations are now the subject of a legal battle, with Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow his use of a 1798 law to swiftly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

Many of the migrants’ families have denied any gang connections and the Venezuelan government has promised to do everything it can to get the men released.

Maduro spoke to Guterres on Wednesday and Turk on Friday, the Venezuelan government said in a statement, asking that the UN support the restoration of the migrants’ human rights and their release.

Both men “expressed their commitment to activating all the available mechanisms to reestablish as soon as possible the flagrantly violated rights of the Venezuelan migrants,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for Guterres did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maduro’s government has long been accused by the political opposition of arbitrary arrests and detentions of opponents.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas in Caracas, additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb)