edited with link to : https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15818 venezuelanalysis for less MSM perspective
Recent arrest of 33 men increases criticism of President Nicolas Maduro’s overtures to anti-LGBTQ religious groups.
It was an otherwise ordinary night at the Avalon Club, a bar and sauna popular with the LGBTQ community in Valencia, Venezuela’s third-largest city.
Music was playing, drinks were flowing and guests were enjoying the accommodations, which included a restaurant, smoking room and massage parlour.
But that evening, on July 23, police would burst into the club, propelling the venue and its patrons into the national spotlight — and sparking questions about LGBTQ discrimination in Venezuela.
Patrons would later recount how the police arrived shouting, “Hands up!”
“I was having a drink with some of my best friends,” one guest, Ivan Valera, later told local media. “I thought it was a joke.”
But the officers proceeded to round up the 33 men in the establishment and hold them in the sauna’s locker rooms.
Luis – who asked to be identified by his first name only, to protect his privacy – told Al Jazeera that the police said they were conducting a “routine inspection”.
“At that moment I was calm,” he said. “I simply thought that it was a normal police procedure.”
But then the officers took Luis and the other men to police headquarters in Los Guayos, a municipality adjacent to Valencia. The men were not told what crime they were being charged with, Luis said. On the contrary, they were told they were “witnesses”.
“That’s when I began to question what was happening,” Luis told Al Jazeera. “Because why are we going as witnesses? Witnesses to what?”
Only after he was forced to give up his mobile phone and have his picture taken did Luis realise he was under arrest.
“[The police] said I have the right to a phone call,” said Luis. “That’s when I started to feel disoriented, like, what’s happening? They didn’t even tell us we were arrested
Being gay is not a crime in Venezuela. But the men were eventually charged with “lewd conduct” and “sound pollution” among other counts. The police offered images of condoms and lubricant as evidence for the supposed crimes.
In addition, the men’s photos were leaked to local media, where they were accused of participating in an “orgy with HIV” and recording pornography. Some of the men, like Luis, had not previously gone public with their sexuality.
But the backlash to the mass arrest was swift. Protests broke out in Caracas and Valencia, with demonstrators calling for the men’s release. The hashtag #LiberanALos33, or “Free the 33”, also went viral on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Thirty of the men were ultimately released on “conditional parole” after 72 hours in custody. The other three — the owner of the Avalon Club and two massage specialists — were let go 10 days after their arrest.
The Public Ministry of Venezuela and the Valencia Police did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the case of the 33 men from the Avalon Club, Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab has recommended the charges be dropped.
But the experience has shaken Luis’s hopes for the future of the LGBTQ community in Venezuela.