Juan Requesens

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit Venezuela, a once proud Latin American democracy that is now in a state of collapse. The country was planning a Presidential election a few weeks after my visit in late May.

My message to President Maduro and members of his government during this visit was clear and simple. They should run a clean election in which opposition candidates are released from detention and allowed to participate. Local and international observers should be allowed to observe the entire electoral process. The election should be administered in a fair and open manner by credible nonpartisan election commissioners.

These were the same messages told to Venezuela by its neighbors in Latin America.

I suggested that meeting these obvious international norms and restoring the power of the country's duly elected National Assembly would help ease Venezuela's isolation and the suffering of its people.

Tragically, obstinately, President Maduro and his circle of corrupt colleagues chose to double down. They held a sham election.

Its legitimacy was rejected by the international community and the consequences have been predictable: continued mass exodus of desperate Venezuelans to neighboring countries, inflation nearing 1 million percent, deepening international isolation, and of course, an increasingly ruthless crackdown on political opponents to further solidify the regime's illegitimate hold on power.

This regime already had a shameful history of jailing political opponents. Their victims include Judge Maria Afiuni, who had the courage to rule against the government on a case before her, Leopoldo Lopez, the former mayor of Caracas who was a highly popular national candidate and therefore remains under house arrest and unable to compete in elections, and so many others including a number of dual American-Venezuelan citizens.

And now, it has jailed young elected National Assembly Member Juan Requesens on highly questionable charges.

His crime? Criticizing President Maduro and the staggering human suffering and the demise of democracy under his dictatorial rule.

Haunting videos of Requesens in detention have surfaced which strongly suggest torture and inhumane treatment.

Several months ago, I had the great pleasure of sitting down with several of Juan's colleagues when I was in Caracas. These are the next generation of young leaders, brave men and women who won at the ballot box in many areas previously won by Hugo Chavez and Maduro.

They won because they made an effort to understand voters' economic concerns and how former ruling parties had too often become corrupt or ignored the poor. They were the hope for the future, but to this Maduro regime, they were a threat.

So voter and candidate registrations were manipulated to make it harder for opposition parties and candidates to compete. Elected National Assembly Members were harassed and threatened. In some cases, their passports were confiscated.

I will never forget when they told me that, if I returned a year later, that half of them might be gone, jailed or chased into exile. Sadly, they were right.

My colleagues Senators Menendez, Nelson, Rubio, Cornyn, and I will introduce legislation in the days ahead that will further targeted sanctions against those Venezuelan officials responsible for this scandalous regime and those responsible for Juan's detention. It will also provide additional aid to help with the humanitarian crises in and along Venezuela's borders.

I wish we had not reached this desperate moment. I wish the Maduro regime would play by basic democratic rules and let the Venezuelan people freely decide their leaders. I wish the Maduro regime had the courage to compete in a free and fair election.

But it didn't.

So until it does and until Leopoldo, Juan, and the many other Venezuelan political prisoners are freed, the National Assembly's powers restored, and a legitimate democratic process is reestablished, I will continue to support pressure on this corrupt regime and sanctioning those responsible for the Venezulea's misery.

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