Chavismo announced this Friday a general amnesty for political prisoners imprisoned in Venezuela. The news was given by the acting president Delcy Rodríguez in an event at the Superior Court of Justice. “I announce a general amnesty law and order that this law be brought to the National Assembly to promote coexistence in Venezuela,” he said. “I ask everyone that no one imposes violence or revenge, so that we all live with respect,” he added after pointing out that this was also a decision already discussed with Nicolás Maduro. The pardon measure could affect hundreds of political prisoners who still remain in Venezuelan prisons. The announcement comes almost a month after the start of the releases, which have occurred in dribs and drabs since the early hours of January 3. In this time, more than 600 prisoners have been released, according to Chavismo – 302, according to defenders of the imprisoned.
Rodríguez made another surprising announcement, according to some of those present at an event that was closed to journalists. El Helicoide, the feared prison that represents the regime’s repression, will become a center of social and sports services for the community.
The measure aims to amnesty and erase the causes of those released from prison. It is a much broader pardon than those that are being executed these days given that those released have been released from prison, but, make statements or even access certain jobs. They are also cannon fodder for extortion if they are intercepted again at a police checkpoint. The future law, according to the president in charge, will exclude from the pardon measure those convicted of crimes of homicide, drugs and common crimes.
“I come to this House as president but also as a lawyer,” Rodríguez said, according to those who heard her. “My father was imprisoned, and died as a result of torture. I believe in the Constitution. In national sovereignty. In justice for the Venezuelan people. We need more justice, with more legal protection,” he continued when remembering his father, in politics and that he was murdered by his jailers.
Chavismo has been using political prisoners as bargaining chips for years. A repressive apparatus orchestrated between the police forces and the justice system has left thousands of detainees in recent years. In other negotiation processes, partial releases of prisoners and prisoner exchanges have been achieved, but, in parallel, arbitrary detentions have continued to occur.
The former head of the Spanish Government has been in a good part of these negotiation processes with Chavismo. Dozens of desperate relatives have turned to the former president seeking mediation in recent years. His work, together with that of the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the kingdom of Qatar, which has also acted as mediator, was praised by the president of the Assembly Jorge Rodríguez when he announced the first releases.
Although there is no precedent for amnesty, there have been pardons. The last – and the only ones – granted by Chavismo occurred in 2020, among which a good part of the team of leader Juan Guaidó, who led the opposition at that time, was included. This was the only time the Government presented a list.
The beneficiaries of that measure appeared in their yellow prison uniforms at an event held in the Chancellery, where the pardon was made official. The defenders then denounced that the list had grown with the inclusion of prisoners prosecuted for common crimes and people who had already been released in previous processes.
The general amnesty is a demand that sectors of the opposition and victims of Chavista repression have insisted on in recent weeks. The president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, announced the release of “a significant number” of detainees just five days after Maduro’s capture, but both civil society and the opposition — inside and outside Venezuela — considered the measure insufficient. You cannot talk about transition —— with prisons full of people unjustly detained.
Slow process
The releases announced by the regime after the fall of Maduro were presented as massive, but they have occurred slowly and, in many cases, without implying full freedoms. The released Venezuelan prisoners remain subject to precautionary measures, with a ban on leaving the country or speaking to the press. Only foreign detainees have fully recovered their freedom upon returning to their countries of origin.
The process has been developed in an opaque manner, without official information that allows us to know who will benefit. Relatives have unsuccessfully demanded the publication of the lists. In some cases, the concessions have not even meant release from prison, but only access to visits for detainees who had been held incommunicado for months.
The window opened by Maduro’s forced departure from power has led relatives to redouble the pressure so that everyone is released this time. For weeks they have been organizing vigils and camps outside the prisons. The cause of the political prisoners has reactivated protests that had remained muted in recent months, after the intensification of political persecution.
Days ago, student leaders of the Central University of Venezuela created an impossible scene in another political moment in Venezuela. Internal pressure on the Government has grown as Donald Trump applies tongs to act as a guardian of Chavismo, which continues in power with the approval of Washington.
Defense NGOs have confirmed that just over 300 people have been released in the last month, but there are still between 600 and 700 political prisoners, according to different sources. Added to that figure are more than 9,000 people subjected to judicial measures and an undetermined number of exiles due to political persecution. The last balance provided by an official raised the number of those released to 808, a figure that family members and lawyers question.
The , which brings together relatives of those detained in the protests after the 2024 elections, when more than 2,000 people were arrested, presented a proposed amnesty law last week for which they are collecting signatures. The mothers insisted on the need to look for “ways out” that “allow for a democratic processing of differences.” This would mean leaving behind events that have led to persecutions and imprisonment for political reasons and would allow everyone to be included, including those who have been forced into exile or hiding, unlike pardons, which only contemplate individual measures.
This organization proposes turning the page on 12 years of repression and sets the starting point for the amnesty on February 1, 2014, days before the first major demonstration against the Maduro Government, which at that time had not yet completed a year in power. The initiative also proposes including social activists, journalists, members of victims’ committees, persecuted soldiers and political leaders. Within a period of 180 days, the Public Ministry should, according to that draft, dismiss the cases and implement independent verification mechanisms, guarantees of non-repetition and reparation measures for the victims.
