Con Nicolás Maduro Moros Not only did the prisons return full of political prisoners, like the time of the dictators Juan Vicente Gómez Chacón and Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez. With the Maduro revolution, prisoners also returned in shackles, to which modern telematic hearings are added. More than prisoners they are hostagesEven if they are teenagers, foreigners or nationals, women, the elderly, men, they are all an element of exchange, negotiation or distraction for the Venezuelan regime. They do not leave in full freedom, but with measures of presentation and under threat that they cannot speak in the media or social networks.
Those deprived of liberty when they are transferred from their cells to the Palace of Justice in Caracas, They carry them with thick and rusty chainswhile officials, carrying long weapons, lead them through the corridors, with an iron bar where they anchor the chains. Adding to the degrading scene is that the detainee spends the entire day in the courthouse, without being provided with food.
The Venezuelan regime turned into a rule what, before Covid 19, was an exception; telematic hearings or statements. There are detainees who are in the interior of the country, but their trial is being handled by a judge in Caracas. Many of these prisoners do not know the name or what the face of the prosecutor, the public defender and the judge are like, or even if they really are the officials they say they are.
Political prisoners in Venezuela are totally defenselessviolating their right to defense and due process, prohibiting them from having lawyers they trust, imposing public defenders who obey orders from their superiors, without access to the files.
There have been at least 10 years of a sequence of political prisoners denied justice, many of them tortured, without the right to be tried by their natural judges, since they went from being judged by military courts to those created as Terrorism Courts.
The arrests have allowed the regime in Venezuela using prisoners as bargaining chips, blackmail, fear and threat. What has happened since July 28, the day of the presidential elections, has skyrocketed the number of political prisoners; What has been experienced with those detained for political reasons, some completely innocent, only to remove them from the political game or neutralize their rights, has been going on for more than a decade.
The strategy of using prisoners as bargaining chips, The Maduro regime allowed the US to free the drug traffickers and the Colombian merchant Alex Saab.in exchange for imprisoned Americans.
Added to this is the non-full release of detainees that attracts public attention when the Venezuelan government needs to reduce popular indignation or distract the country, as occurred with the death due to negligence and lack of medical care of the electoral witness. Jesús Manuel Martínez Medina “Manolín”who was in police custody in Anzoátegui.
The number of political prisoners is chilling, only since the day of the presidential elections, It has nearly two thousand people. Venezuela has the largest number of political prisoners on the continent.
While it is true that, at the time of his arrest, on July 29, after having been an electoral witness in the presidential elections, Martínez Medina was suffering from diabetes and heart problems, it is also true that His condition was aggravated by the lack of medical care.
It was of no use that the opposition coalition Plataforma Unitaria, the former prosecutor Zair Mundaray and political leaders such as Eduardo Battistini, They claimed weeks before that Manolín’s health condition was becoming complicated and he urgently needed treatment for his leg. Nobody responded, neither the prosecutor, nor the Ombudsman, nor the Judge nor the police authorities, much less the Ministry of the Interior.
Martínez Medina suffered a deterioration in health, which decompensated him, while the authorities refused to transfer him for medical attention, with the excuse that they were waiting for the Court’s order; When they took him to the hospital late, he already had gangrene in his leg and they couldn’t amputate it until he stabilized. He died last November 14.
The reactions were immediate. Political voices, inside and outside the country, Venezuelan and foreign, made harsh criticism and denounced that the Venezuelan regime not only deployed brutal repression, but has also denied justice and violated the human rights of those detained until Martínez was killed. .
release some
The day after the death of Jesús Manuel Martínez Medina, and in the attempt to lower public pressure, the prosecutor Tarek William Saab Halab issued a statement ensuring that the former electoral witness “had proper medical attention and was given the medications and other treatments that his health condition warranted,” without adding that his transfer to the hospital, on October 11, was late and did not They allowed him to be taken to a private clinic to undergo a necessary medical examination since the equipment situation at the Luis Razetti hospital, Anzoátegui state, is precarious.
Manolín’s death continued to be in the news, along with more protests from family members about the fate of their loved ones behind bars. Nicolás Maduro then resorts to the wild card of political prisoners and says, on Monday, November 11, in his weekly television program: “I call on Dr. Tarek William Saab, attorney general, to the country’s judges, as head of state , If there is any case to rectify and review, also ensure that there is justice.”
Immediately, and in order not to recognize that he was complying with an order from Maduro, prosecutor Saab Halabi said that he had requested before the courts review 225 cases of those detained after 28Jadding that this was done “after exhaustive investigations based on new indications and evidentiary elements.” From that moment on, expectations were unleashed as to who would be the 225 released of the almost two thousand detainees.
Diosdado Hair He said two days later, in his television program on the State propaganda channel, and in reference to the detained teenagers: “There they are putting pressure on the political prisoners, with those children who are detained. Where were your parents on July 29 and 30? “They worry now, but they should have done it before.”
Only some in prison
The strategy applied for the release of political prisoners reduces the current of opinion due to the death of Jesús Manuel Martínez Medina. It’s just the revolving door functioning as a wild card; They release some while preparing to imprison others.
The NGO Foro Penal has said that among those detained after July 28 there are 116 adolescents, 170 women, 14 indigenous people and 16 people with some disability.
Among those released are a young man and a woman, both with dual Venezuelan and Spanish nationality, whose names were not released, but the two Spaniards who had been accused of terrorism and of whom the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, remain in prison. He said they were part of a plan to assassinate Nicolás Maduro; they are Andrés Martínez Adasme and José María Basoa Valdovinos.
They take a little bit from each prison, be it Tocuyito in Carabobo state, Tocorón in Aragua state, the La Crisálida Training Center for Female Prosecuted Women, in Los Teques, Miranda state. Let’s look at the names of 47 of those released so far, who still do not reach the figure of 225:
Alejandro Castro, Francisco Linares Alcántara municipality. His brother remains in El Helicoide.
Alexander Fuentes.
Alex Gonzalez.
Alexis Piñero.
Andrés Ricardo Bohórquez.
Angel Moreno.
Bladimir L. Piñero.
Carlos Enrique Chile.
Carlos Peroza.
Carlos Suárez Bellorín.
Cristian Morillo, from Apure state.
Cristian Perez.
David Sanoja.
Domingo Rodríguez.
Edekis García Contreras.
Eduardo Cadorca.
Eduberlys David Pérez, Apure.
Elías Maíz.
Enjer José López Blanco.
Estrada Gunjino.
Eudomar Mujica.
Gabriel Alejandro Sánchez Maita, a young man who suffered a stroke in the Tocorón prison.
Garbelis Torres.
Gilbert Vazquez.
Gustavo Albarrán.
José David Crespo, a 14-year-old teenager, who was detained with his father in the state of Lara. His father is still in Tocorón.
José Ramón Díaz, former mayor of the Marcano municipality, Nueva Esparta.
José Leonardo Sandoval, 67 years old, detained in Táchira. He was held in Tocorón.
Jesús Mata, human rights defender and community leader; The announcer is also from Trujillo.
Juan Ramón Díaz.
Lauriannys Valentina Cedeño Farías, from Carúpano, Sucre state, a 17-year-old teenager, who suffered a brain collapse after his arrest for having sent a WhatsApp message questioning the results of the 28J elections.
Luis Alarcón, 28 years old, from Barinas, who suffers from diabetes and decompensated several times while in prison.
Luis Alberto Contreras.
Luis Batista.
Luis Ocanto.
Maximiliano Guerra.
Orlando Gabriel Espinoza, teenager.
Rafael Murillo.
Roger Rondón.
Salvador Rivera, professor of Psychology at the UCV.
Sandro Javier Rodríguez González, Lara.
Santos Villarreal.
Sergio Blanco, medical student.
Vicente Scarano, son of former mayor Enzo Scarano.
Wilmer Register.
Wilmer Moraiko.
Yanaiker Lima.
Amnesty International
Recently, Agnés Callamardsecretary general of Amnesty International (AI), told the agency EFE in Lisbon that Venezuela has gone “from bad to worse” in terms of human rights and that in the last decade “there has been no progress.”
He said that “we have found evidence of extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detentions, stigmatization of human rights defenders and arrests of people for dissenting from the authorities,” adding that repression escalated after the presidential elections.
In addition to the almost two thousand detainees, “at least 25 people have died due to the use of lethal force, including minors. We know that an anti-NGO law has been adopted; that minors who remain in detention have been mistreated.”
