Rubio Denounces Infamous Venezuelan 'Helicoide' Torture Center

US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has condemned Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro for  torture practices. 

Dictator Maduro has been previously broadly accused of human rights violations including arbitrary deprivations of life, arbitrary detentions, short-term forced disappearances, acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as sexual and gender-based violence.

Senator Rubio’s condemnation of Maduro derives from a specific Venezuelan torture initiative hosted at the ‘Helicoide.’

The Helicoide, formerly a shopping mall, was converted into an industrial detainment and torture center by the Venezuelan regime. 

Hundreds of political dissidents and human rights advocates have been brutalized within the walls of the Helicoide. 

Rubio published a video explaining the Maduro regime’s subhuman treatment of Helicoide detainees, alleging that the center is “the largest torture center in our hemisphere.”

Rubio’s publications follow recent findings from the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuelan Human Rights that Maduro’s regimes committed crimes against humanity. 

Maduro has harnessed the entire Venezuelan state apparatus, explains the report, to attempt to forcefully retain power.

“Following the presidential election of 28 July 2024, the authorities intensified and accelerated the harshest and most violent form of repression in order to silence political opponents or persons perceived as such,” reads the report. “The repression by State and private actors with the acquiescence of the State, which continues today, has resulted in a generalized climate of fear among the population.”

US lawmakers have responded to Maduro’s pernicious acts by filing a bipartisan bill that will prohibit US companies from doing business with Venezuelan oil companies, a source of funding for Maduro. 

Other bills seeking to pressure Maduro into relinquishing power, such as raising the price for granting the US government information leading to his arrest, have been filed. 

In March 2020, Maduro was charged by a New York court with narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.