From the International Socialist League, we join the demand coming from Venezuela and already being raised in several countries, demanding the immediate freedom of Martha Grajales, a well-known human rights defender and member of the Surgentes Collective, who was violently approached on August 8 by alleged police officers without any identification and taken away by force. As explained in a text published as a statement for her freedom, “accompanied by some comrades present at the activity, she was detained at a barrier of the Criminal Investigations Division linked to the Bolivarian National Police. While she was explaining to the police that her identity card had been stolen on Tuesday, August 5, in the vicinity of the Supreme Court of Justice, during the vigil of the Mothers in Defense of the Truth, other vehicles driven by supposed police officers arrived at the scene and took her away.”
To this day, it is not known where she is and there is no information about her situation, in an extremely serious incident that directly attacks the most basic democratic rights and the life and freedom of a human rights leader.
What is happening is no coincidence, but part of very serious events that have been taking place in Venezuela. First, a brutal attack on the peaceful vigil of the mothers of young political prisoners, which took place on the night of August 5 in front of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ), when the security forces withdrew and left the way open for motorized gangs to burst in, destroy everything and attack the mothers and all the people present, including representatives of political and social organizations who had come in solidarity.
In the following days, press conferences and other actions of repudiation were held. The last was on August 8, in front of the UN office in Caracas, where Martha Lía Grajales was responsible for reading the statement of the Committee of Mothers in Defense of the Truth, made up of mothers of young people arrested for participating in the post-election protests of July 28, 2024. Not by chance, in another brutal act of repression, was this lawyer attacked and captured shortly afterwards.
Since then, her release is demanded and for her whereabouts to be revealed and, as has been reported in various places, the legal authorities have even refused to grant her a writ of habeas corpus, disrespecting the guarantees of this new victim of a repressive escalation and which is also affecting sectors of the working class and popular base, sectors originating from Chavism and the critical left and those opposed to Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly repressive and persecutory regime.
What is happening in this case is a new repressive leap that deserves all the repudiation and the broadest international solidarity until the recently captured human rights lawyer reappears. It’s no coincidence that the wave of voices of repudiation is growing in different countries. For example, in Argentina, the emblematic Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have publicly demanded her freedom, and members of the Left Front are presenting a declaration and a request for a resolution in parliament demanding her location and freedom. In the face of this brutal repression, new protest actions are also being organized in Venezuela, to which we join in solidarity.
In this sense, we make our own and share here the demands that our comrades from Marea Socialista are spreading in Venezuela:
- Immediate release for Martha Lía Grajales, with full respect for her physical, psychological and moral integrity.
- Immediate investigation and punishment of those responsible (for the attacks and irregular detentions).
- Institutional care for mothers and their companions in solidarity, with the return of stolen belongings (cell phones, keys, identity documents and others).
- Freedom for all political prisoners.
- Deactivation of “collectives” used as repressive para-police instruments.
- Respect for the right to protest and for human rights defenders.
- National and international solidarity campaign.
- Organization, coordination and mobilization to defeat repression.
International Socialist League, August 11, 2025
