The Embassy of Venezuela in Spain has issued a public apology for the racist chants and manifestations of Carlos Baute that occurred during the event of the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, held this Saturday in Madrid.
"This Embassy expresses its sincerest apologies to the people of Spain, who know in their own history the horror of fascism and hate crimes," said the Venezuelan ambassador, Gladys Gutiérrez, in a statement released this Sunday.
Moments before Machado made his appearance on the balcony of the Real Casa de Correos, the singer Carlos Baute, who was performing on the stage set up in the square, exhorted the thousands of attendees with the cry of "Out with the monkey!", alluding to the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez.
The diplomatic mission has especially censured that these expressions were directed against a woman, understanding that they constitute "a form of political violence based on misogyny and racism". The diplomatic text adds that calling a woman "monkey" constitutes "an act of dehumanization incompatible with the principles of international human rights law".
According to the statement, Venezuela "categorically denounces these events" and emphasizes that its women, "as historical and political figures, cannot and will not be the object of hate speech, wherever it comes from."
The diplomatic legation also underlines that Venezuela is "a profoundly mixed-race nation, forged in diversity and in the encounter of indigenous, African, and European roots", and that any attempt to "degrade, dehumanize, or stigmatize from that diversity" constitutes, in its opinion, "a direct aggression to the very essence of what is Venezuelan".