Venezuelan human rights organizations warn that no NGO in Venezuela really knows how many political prisoners there are. They confirm that only 75 of the more than 400 prisoners who – according to interim president Delcy Rodríguez – have been released since Donald Trump’s intervention and the subsequent capture of Nicolás Maduro have been released. And those who are leaving do so with precautionary measures: checking in at court every few days, a ban on leaving Venezuela or restrictions on speaking to the media.
Osman Delgado, father of María Auxiliadora who has been imprisoned with his son-in-law for almost 7 years, recounts some of the torture they have to suffer: the officials hit the walls and bars to not let them rest, they give them rotten food or they do not feed them at all. Many of them are extremely deteriorated and thin enough to leave prison with the world as a witness.
“They are gaining weight, they are so thin that there are prisoners who walk hunched over because their skin is stuck to their bones.”
Tamara Sujú, criminal lawyer specialized in Human Rights and director of the Center for Studies and Analysis on Latin America (Casla), also denounces that some of those released are actually common prisoners camouflaged as political prisoners.
“They are giving us a piece of cake,” Sujú said at an event in Madrid held with Venezuelan and Spanish organizations that defend Human Rights, such as the Venezuela Help Platform and the Movement Against Intolerance.
Once the releases have begun, prison officials have asked relatives to bring them food: “They must be in a fattening operation” so that the international community does not see the brutalities of the Chavista regime, warns Tamara Sujú, who points out that “more than political prisoners they are hostages.”
Some 18,000 Venezuelans currently have open judicial processes
The relatives of the prisoners are hopeful that one day the tyranny and dictatorship will end, that the torture centers will close and that the political prisoners will be able to regain their freedom. They are aware that “the regime uses them to continue extorting the world and Venezuelan civil society.”
