Eduardo Franco
Its president, Eduardo Franco, reported that the search was carried out without a court order and that antiretroviral drugs and milk formulas for pregnant mothers and children with HIV / AIDS were arbitrarily taken
Eduardo Franco is the Director of Fundación Manos Amigas por la Vida - Fundación Mavid (Mavid Foundation), a non-profit organization founded in 2003 in Carabobo state, dedicated to defending the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Composed mostly by PLWHA, family members and health personnel, they aim to contributing to the orientation of PLWHA, through workshops and self-support groups, to prevention and other activities – including distribution of medicines.
Eduardo Franco and other members of Fundación Mavid have been targetted with defamation, criminalisation and illegal breaks-ins in their office. On 15 February 2019, State authorities illegally raided the headquarters of Fundación Mavid, and subsequently brought three of its members for questioning at the Corps of Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations (CICPC).
HRDs in Venezuela have been working under restrictive policies for many years: the Maduro administration has continued the work begun by Chávez in restricting civil space and delegitimising HRDs, repeatedly accusing them of undermining the Venezuelan democracy with the alleged collaboration of the United States. HRDs are discredited and criminalised by state-controlled media (television, radio, print media) on a weekly basis.
