'This is madness': Venezuela's brutal punishment for coronavirus rule breakers

One country is punishing citizens who violate coronavirus rules with physical exercise, forcing them to social distance under a harsh sun, and even while subjected to alleged beatings.

Witnesses and rights groups in Venezuela, on South America’s north coast, claim people who are disobeying curfews and failing to social distance are being subjected to “cruel and inhumane” penalties.

In the South American country there have been more than 33,000 cases of coronavirus and 281 deaths.

In Australia, there have been about 23,700 total cases and more than 430 deaths.

Despite Venezuela doing relatively well in containing the spread of the virus, compared to South American neighbour Brazil – where more than three million people have been infected and more than 100,000 people have died – rules are still relatively strict.

Venezuela has been locked down since it recorded its first case in March, with international flights to and from Venezuela limited, a face mask mandate and curfew.

Roberto Vargas told Reuters he was ordered to sit in the sun alongside dozens of others after lowering his face mask to wipe sweat away while he was out to buy flour with his children in Caracas, the country’s capital.

“This is madness,” he said.

Local human rights groups have also exposed some of the harsh methods of punishment, with a video posted to Twitter by group Provea showing three men who were ordered to do push-ups and say, “I should not be in the street”.

“Young people are forced to carry out exercises for allegedly not complying with preventive regulations,” Provea said.

Other images show people being placed in the middle of the street and forced to sit and social distance as punishment for disobeying coronavirus orders.

According to Reuters, another video was also circulating on social media showing three men hit in the legs with a baseball bat in Venezuela for breaking coronavirus measures, however the country’s Information Ministry did not respond to the the news agency’s request for comment.

‘Cruel and inhumane’

Chief prosecutor Tarek Saab reacted to the baseball bat video by saying authorities investigated the "cruel and inhuman treatment" and the person responsible had been identified and charged with assault.

Saab named the person but did not say where he worked.

The political opposition and rights groups say the punishments were another example of how President Nicolas Maduro had militarised his government's response to the pandemic, deploying forces widely accused of human rights violations including torture, extra-judicial killings and extortion.

Mr Maduro has publicly thanked the military for "doing battle" with COVID-19 and previously said his security forces had been subject to an international defamation campaign.

Since Maduro announced a lockdown in March, security forces have set up checkpoints across the country to limit people's movement and enforce mask use. Police units also patrol through cities to ensure residents comply with curfews.

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"This is only going to worsen the contagion rate," Jose Manuel Olivares, a health adviser to opposition leader Juan Guaido, told Reuters, saying many were not reporting possible symptoms for fear of drawing heavy-handed attention.

Maduro's government says however it is trying to stop an accelerating number of cases from overloading the dilapidated health system.

with Reuters

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