Claudia Smolansky

Claudia Smolansky is an independent journalist from Venezuela, dedicated to covering human rights violations, crimes against humanity, violence and migration. She has reported primarily about political prisoners, extrajudicial executions, victims of torture, enforced disappearances and killings of protesters.

She is one of the authors of “Torture is the neighbor”, a three-piece article series that reveals the existence of clandestine tortures houses in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. The piece was recognized with the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize by the European Commission and the National Award of Journalism by The Institute for Press and Society (Ipys).

Claudia’s articles have appeared in different local media such as Armando.Info, El Nacional, El Estímulo, Runrun.es and Crónica.Uno with the support of different regional journalist networks such as CONNECTAS, CAPIR and CLIP. One of her other recent works was an investigation about the trafficking of Venezuelans girls and women to Trinidad and Tobago. She is also one of the co-directors and producers of the documentary series and campaign “Never Again in Venezuela”, selected for the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague and recognized with a Suncoast Regional Emmy Award. This project tells the stories of the ones who were killed and injured in non-violent protests and taken as political prisoners by the governments of Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez.

Claudia is currently a fellow in the Berlin Scholarship Program, where she is learning about digital security and how to protect herself as well as her data and sources.