“A perverse dynamic rotating door”: the complaints of new arrests in Venezuela after the release of a group of prisoners

Detention in protests against Maduro last year — Photo foot, Around 2,200 people were arrested in Venezuela during the protests against the announcement of the triumph of Nicolás Maduro in last year's elections.

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While some are released, others fall in prison in Venezuela.

The government of President Nicolás Maduro announced the release of 80 detainees on Friday, July 18, in the middle of an exchange for 252 Venezuelan migrants who were deported by the United States and were held in a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

However, at least 20 people would have been arrested during the three days after the exchange of prisoners for migrants, denounced the opposition leader María Corina Machado.

“This pattern, already repeated, confirms the policy of the 'rotating door': selectively release some to imprison others. Repression does not cease, it is only redistributed,” Machado wrote in his X account.

“The deprivation of liberty remains used as a political negotiation tool in the midst of a hostage and selective punishment diplomacy.”

The arrests would have occurred despite the fact that the Maduro government has not yet fulfilled its promise to free the first 80 of almost 1,000 detainees that are estimated to be in the Venezuelan prisons for political reasons.

But both Maduro and the Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, deny that in the country there are people detained for political reasons.

The Venezuelan government and prosecution argue that prisoners are prosecuted for common crimes and “against the constitutional order.”

Three days after the exchange between the governments of Maduro and the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele, the Venezuelan NGOs indicated that they had only been able to confirm the release of 59 prisoners.

Venezuelan migrants released by El Salvador — Photo foot, 252 Venezuelan migrants were delivered by the Government of El Salvador to the Venezuelan authorities on July 18.

“The repression has not stopped”

“We are deeply concerned that, while some releases are specified, new arbitrary arrests continue to occur, generating a perverse dynamic of rotating door,” the Committee for the freedom of political prisoners (CLIPPVE) published in X, which groups relatives and detainees lawyers.

One of those captured in recent days, according to his family, is the student Simón Bolívar Obregón, advisor to the Federation of University Centers of the Central University of Venezuela, whose whereabouts are unknown, the Venezuelan portal reported Cocuyo effect.

Fernando Serrano, union leader of the state-owned CVG-Baxilum Industry; Ángel Rivas, husband of the president of the Bolívar State Nursing College; and Manuel Enrique Ferreira, coordinator of the opposition platform command with Venezuela in the state of Lara.

“We know that threats and blackmail persist that prevent many families from publicly denouncing the arbitrary detention of their loved ones or informing about liberations,” the Clippve warned in a statement.

“Repression has not stopped and political persecution continues to affect more Venezuelan families,” he added.

Relatives of detainees in Caracas. — Photo foot, Relatives of the detainees have made vigils to ask before the Prosecutor's Office the release of their relatives.

Waiting for the list

The Maduro government has not published a list with the names of the released nor has explained what were the criteria for defining how they were chosen.

“We regret the lack of an official list that allows to verify with more precision, since at other times people not registered as political prisoners have been included, people who had already been released long ago and even people who had already died in custody,” warned the NGO Criminal Forum in their X account.

Martha Tineo, General Coordinator of the NGO Justice, Meeting and Forgiveness, told the Venezuelan newspaper as not other detainees with “serious diseases” or “adolescents who remain deprived of liberty” or “elderly people.”

“The fact that they leave a political agreement shows that the prison of these people came from a political decision, as well as their release,” he added.

Until July 15, Criminal Forum assured that there were 948 political prisoners in Venezuela, of which four are minors, and 51 remain missing.

Three days before the announcement of the liberations, Amnesty International published a report in which he denounced that the Venezuelan authorities “commit forced disappearances as part of a generalized and systematic attack against the civilian population, particularly against those who consider dissidents, which configures the crime against humanity.”