The legal defense of five members of the Venezuelan NGO "Azul Positivo", dedicated to the prevention of HIV, who are imprisoned under the accusation of criminal association, filed an appeal to demand their freedom, the organization Provea reported on Monday.
"The defense of" Azul Positivo "files an appeal to demand the release of the five humanitarian workers, arbitrarily detained in (the headquarters of the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence) Dgcim de Maracaibo," wrote his Twitter account Provea, an NGO dedicated to defense from the human rights.
Faced with this situation, they demanded that the appeals court act because "humanitarian work is not a crime."
Last Thursday, a court ordered preventive detention for the five members of the NGO “Azul Positivo”, after being accused by the Public Prosecutor's Office of various crimes, including criminal association.
The Commission for Human Rights of the northwestern state of Zulia (bordering Colombia), of which Maracaibo is the capital, detailed that the crimes of which the five detainees are accused are “fraudulent handling of smart cards or similar instruments, association to commit crimes and legitimation of capital ”.
The organization then warned about a "materialization of an unprecedented aggression to the humanitarian space in Venezuela" and asked the international organizations that work in the area in the country to comment on the situation.
In this regard, Provea added on Monday that they are "in prison for helping."
“The work of“ Azul Positivo ”reaches every corner of Zulia, even the border. They have helped Venezuelan migrants and areas like La Guajira ”(a peninsula between Venezuela and Colombia), they stressed.
Since last November in Venezuela there have been raids of NGOs, among them Alimenta la Solidaridad -which distributes lunches in the poor neighborhoods of Venezuela-, and Caracas Mi Convive -focused on reducing the rates of violence in Caracas-.
In December, the NGO Convite, which works to reduce the rates of violence in the capital, was also raided by the Venezuelan authorities on charges of "crimes associated with terrorism."