In the latest video he posted on his social networks last Saturday, political scientist Nicmer Evans said that at the door of his house, where he was with his wife and minor son, there was a commission of men who identified themselves as agents of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin), who asked him to attend an “interview” to which he agreed to attend. More than two days have passed without his family knowing the whereabouts of the political activist, analyst and director of the independent media Cutting point. This is the second arrest of Evans, who came from the ranks of Chavismo, but who became one of the most critical of the government of Nicolas Maduro and declared himself a victim of persecution.
Chavismo has stepped up arrests of opponents and critics in recent months, while the United States tightens its grip with unprecedented military deployment in the Caribbean and a long list of measures aimed at putting pressure on Maduro’s regime.
Evans regularly publishes political analysis videos in which he makes strong criticisms and intemperate statements to the government of Nicolas Maduro that very few dare to make from Venezuela. His wife, Martha Cambero, denounced the fact that Evans was arrested without a judicial decision and blamed Maduro and the Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, for everything that could happen to him. “They took him illegally. They did not show any type of arrest document, saying that they were going for interrogation. We don’t know anything about him,” said the wife after demanding guarantees about her health, as she suffers from hypertension and underwent an operation on the digestive system a year ago.
“I demand from the competent authorities that we know where he is, where Nicmer Evans is at the moment. I ask you to know him and on top of that, we demand that his fundamental rights be respected. His right to life and his right to defend himself,” said Cambero, who presented a habeas corpus in court to demand to know the whereabouts of her husband. The crime of enforced disappearance has been reported recurrently in most arrests of political prisoners. It is also common for the judicial system to refuse court proceedings. habeas corpus what its defenders are trying to do.
This arrest has sparked new concern among human rights organizations. NGOs such as Provea and Espacio Público called this event a new episode of criminalization of dissent. Opposition politicians joined in rejecting the arrest.
In July 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, Evans was arrested by judicial police agents and spent 51 days in the basements of the General Directorate of Military Counterespionage in Caracas, one of Chavismo’s political prisons. There he slept on the ground for several days and was unable to see sunlight for over a month.
In addition to Evans, Vente Venezuela, the party of María Corina Machado, denounced the arrest in Caracas of another of its coordinators. This is Melquiades Pulido, 70 years old, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and delicate health. More than a hundred members of the organization, whose opposition leader received the Nobel Peace Prize, were arrested over the last year, among the thousands of political prisoners listed by organizations like Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, which also alerted to the delicate state of health of more than 60 of these prisoners and condemned the death in state custody or due to the consequences of the imprisonment of six people in 2025.
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