SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Starting July 1, 2026, SAR no longer publishes reports for the incidents that it records. SAR continues to monitor and record incidents that will be used in the annual Free to Think report. This page provides a record of incidents reported up to that date. Learn more about the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.

Date of Incident: July 18, 2025

Attack Types: Killings, Violence, Disappearances

Institution(s):Central University of Venezuela

Region & Country:Americas | Venezuela

New or Ongoing:New Incident

On July 18, 2025, suspected security forces abducted Simón Bolívar Obregón, a student council member at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), from his home.

According to information gathered by human rights organizations, a group of hooded intruders, suspected to be members of the state security forces, broke into Bolívar’s residence at 12:40 am. No court order was presented. Three days later, there was still no official information regarding the reason for Bolívar’s arrest, the charges against him, or his exact whereabouts.

In a statement to the press, the Federation of University Centers at UCV demanded the immediate release of Bolívar and all unjustly detained students. The group denounced the detention as an attempt to silence dissenting voices. The detention came amid a rise in political prisoners and increasing criminalization of student activism in Venezuela following the contested election of President Nicolás Maduro to his third term in July 2024. At the time of writing in February 2025, it appeared Bolívar was no longer being held but no information on his release was publicly available.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about the temporary disappearance of a student in apparent retaliation for their exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association — conduct that is expressly protected by international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Venezuela is a party. State authorities have a responsibility to refrain from arrests and detentions that restrict or retaliate against student expression. In addition to the harm to the immediate victim, detentions that target student expression undermine academic freedom and democratic society generally.

Sources:
*This incident was identified by Aula Abierta, a member of the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the America’s Monitoring Working Group.
https://www.abc.com.py/internacionales/2025/07/18/universitarios-y-ong-venezolanas-denuncian-la-detencion-de-un-dirigente-estudiantil/
https://www.infobae.com/venezuela/2025/07/21/la-oposicion-venezolana-exigio-respuestas-sobre-el-caso-simon-bolivar-obregon/
https://x.com/FCU_UCVe/status/1946186909010608307