The NGO Foro Penal, which leads the legal defense of political prisoners in Venezuela, stated this Monday that more than 600 of these people remain detained in the country, following the 444 releases that the organization has verified since January 8, when the interim government announced a release process. “There are still more than 600 people,” said the president of the NGO, Alfredo Romero, in front of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) command known as Zone 7, in Caracas, where ten women, relatives of political prisoners, have been on hunger strike since Saturday. The lawyer, accompanied by a team from the Penal Court, went to the scene to support these women, who are also chained, and to provide legal assistance.
Jorge Rodríguez, the Chavista president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, reported that 17 people were released from prison in Zone 7 last Saturday. Romero said, however, that the list of political prisoners now includes people whose families did not report their cases out of fear or because their whereabouts were unknown. Furthermore, the Criminal Forum does not consider cases in which a person remains under house arrest after leaving a detention center as cases of release.
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One of these cases is that of Juan Pablo Guanipa, a former deputy close to Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, and Perkins Rocha, legal advisor to the largest opposition coalition. On February 8, they were released from prison along with a group of other political activists. However, Rocha remains under house arrest, as does Guanipa, who was arrested again the same day he was released, accused by the Public Ministry (MP) of violating his probation. Last Tuesday, the family announced that the opposition leader was already under house arrest at his residence in Maracaibo, capital of the state of Zulia.
On February 6, Rodríguez promised the release of “everyone” as soon as the amnesty law was approved, which he estimated would happen “at the latest” last Friday. However, the National Assembly postponed the second and final debate necessary to approve the law until this week, due to disagreements over an article. The release process and the discussion about an amnesty occur in a “new political moment”, declared the interim dictator of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez (sister of Jorge Rodríguez), who took office after the capture of Nicolás Maduro by the United States in a military operation in Caracas.
