Victor Navarro is a Venezuelan journalist and human rights defender.
Navarro is a journalist who has used leading platforms in Venezuela to defend democracy and freedom of expression, focusing on the most vulnerable groups of Venezuelan society. As a result of his criticism of the Maduro government, he was arbitrarily detained in 2018 at the age of 22. He underwent physical and psychological abuse and torture while being held in El Helicoide, Venezuela’s clandestine torture facility.
Upon securing his release, Navarro fled to Argentina where he now lives in exile. He is the founder and executive director of Voces de la Memoria, an NGO focused on the intersection of technology and human rights, and the creator of the VR experience Helicoide, which recreates the torturous experience of political prisoners in El Helicoide. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Community Ambassadors Foundation, which has suffered criminalization, persecution, and harassment by the Venezuelan government, as well as the arbitrary detention of some of its members and the exile of others. He is also an activist, using his voice to expose the torture perpetrated by the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro. Navarro’s case was exposed in the report of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
