Report: Military officers, relatives tortured in Venezuela

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two prominent human rights organizations say that law enforcement forces in Venezuela have detained and tortured military personnel accused of plotting against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Human Rights Watch and the Venezuelan non-governmental group Foro Penal said in a joint report released Wednesday that authorities in the South American country have also detained and tortured family members of some suspects in an effort to locate them.

Detainees reported abuses such as brutal beatings, asphyxiation, cutting the soles of their feet with a razor blade, electric shocks, food deprivation, forbidding them to go to the bathroom and death threats.