The Venezuelan NGOs Foro Penal and Justice, Encounter and Forgiveness (JEP) told EFE this Thursday that they are verifying the total number of releases announced by the relatives of people detained in the context of the protests that broke out after the 2024 presidential elections, when President Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed re-elected for a third term.
“We have been able to corroborate up to this moment 47, they tell us that there will be 87,” the general coordinator of JEP, Martha Tineo, told EFE, after pointing out that they continue to verify.
The vice president of the Penal Forum, Gonzalo Himiob, indicated, for his part, that his organization was “verifying” and “calling the relatives on a case-by-case basis.”
Earlier, The Committee of Mothers in Defense of the Truth reported that during the early hours of this new year the authorities released 87 people who remained held in the Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua (north), after being detained in the context of the demonstrations.
The group pointed out that those released had “limited freedom, because they continue to be tried and with precautionary measures and many other of our relatives are still arbitrarily deprived of their freedom.”
Meanwhile, the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (Clipp), also made up of relatives, indicated in X that they had managed to confirm 29 releases from Tocorón and one from the El Rodeo I prison, in the state of Miranda (center).
“Every liberation is a victory, but the repression continues. Most of the political prisoners They remain behind bars, and the fight for full freedom does not stop until everyone is free,” said Clipp.
Political prisoners released this January 1
Foro Penal counted, until December 15, 902 political prisoners in Venezuela, 86 of them foreigners or Venezuelans with another nationality, while JEP estimated them at more than 1,000 during that same month.
After the presidential elections of July 28, 2024, a crisis broke out in Venezuela, as a result of the controversial re-election of Maduro, proclaimed by the electoral body – controlled by officials related to Chavismo -, and the complaint of “fraud” by the majority opposition, which claims the victory of Edmundo González Urrutia.
In this context, more than 2,400 people were arrested – most of them released – and accused of being “terrorists”, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, although several NGOs and opposition parties defend them as innocent and assure that they are political prisoners.
Maduro’s Executive assures that the country is “free of political prisoners” and that those designated as such are imprisoned for the “commission of terrible punishable acts.”
