Venezuela frees dozens detained during protests against Maduro

A human rights advocacy group claims that Venezuelan authorities have released at least 60 people who were detained during demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election, but hundreds of others are still imprisoned.

According to the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, a group of rights activists and detainees’ relatives who were detained as a result of the unrest that followed July’s presidential election, the releases started early on Thursday, over Christmas.

More than 60 Venezuelans who should never have been arbitrarily detained are being released, according to committee head Andreina Baduel, who spoke to the AFP news agency.

We will continue fighting for their full freedom, as well as that of all political prisoners, even though they are not entirely free.

In the July 2024 election, Maduro won a third term in office despite allegations of fraud in part by some members of the opposition. About 2,400 people were arrested as a result of the disputed outcome, which sparked weeks of demonstrations. Approximately 2, 000 people have been freed since then, according to rights organizations.

According to Foro Penal, an NGO that monitors detentions, Venezuela still has at least 902 political prisoners despite recent releases.

According to relatives, Tocoron prison, a maximum-security facility in Aragua state, is located about 134 kilometers (83 miles) from the state’s capital Caracas, where many of the freed people are residing. The conditions under which detainees were released have not been made clear by officials.

According to Baduel, “we must bear in mind that there are more than 1, 000 families with political prisoners.” In 2021, her father, former defense minister Raul Isaias Baduel, a friend of the late president Hugo Chavez, passed away in custody.