Caracas, Jul 2 (AP) Venezuela’s ruling party-controlled National Assembly on Tuesday declared Volker Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, persona non grata, criticising the UN official for failing to protect the rights of Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador. The rare diplomatic designation has no immediate practical effect but reflected the broader anger of President Nicol谩s Maduro at the UN agency that monitors and defends human rights. Also Read | Rajnath Singh Speaks to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Appreciates ‘Unwavering Support’ in Fight Against Terrorism. It comes just days after Turk said his office has documented increasing arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and torture under Maduro’s government. 鈥淭urk turns a blind eye to atrocious crimes,鈥 said National Assembly President Jorge Rodr铆guez, who is also Maduro’s chief negotiator with the US. Also Read | ‘Elon Musk May Have To Close Up Shop, Head Back Home to South Africa Without EV Subsidies’: Donald Trump Issues Deportation Warning for Tesla and SpaceX CEO. 鈥淗e does nothing for the human rights of Venezuelans in the United States and El Salvador.鈥 El Salvador is holding 252 Venezuelans deported from the US in a maximum-security prison. Turk recently urged the US to halt deportations of Venezuelans who may be at risk of arrest in their home country and raised concerns about the lack of due process in mass deportations from the US. The ire of Venezuela’s National Assembly appeared to have been energised by Turk’s speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva last Friday. Turk raised alarm over an intensifying crackdown on civil liberties in the wake of Venezuela’s parliamentary elections in June and the unrest that followed Maduro’s disputed re-election last year — echoing past statements of concern from his agency and other watchdogs. Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner of the July 2024 presidential election despite credible evidence to the contrary. 鈥淚 am very concerned by detention conditions, including people being denied access to medical care, and lacking access to food and water,鈥 he told the council last week. 鈥淪ome prisoners were subjected to incommunicado detention.鈥 Lawmakers called on Maduro to withdraw Venezuela’s membership from the Human Rights Council while Turk remains in his post. Turk’s office offered no immediate response to the National Assembly decision. The move Tuesday raised new questions over the status of the UN human rights office in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, which partially resumed operations last December — months after Maduro’s government forced it to close and expelled its staff, accusing the agency’s employees of aiding 鈥渃oup-plotters and terrorists鈥 as tensions surged in the run-up to the presidential election. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)