On Sunday, over 200 prisoners declared a hunger strike, most of them feeling excluded from this law.
Twenty-three new prisoners were released on Sunday under the amnesty law adopted under pressure from the United States, announced the NGO Foro Penal. Among them are at least seven members of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado’s party, including a leader, Juan Freites, who announced this from their party, Vente Venezuela. “Welcome home, my dear Juan! Your family, your mother, your sisters, and all your Vente family, we have not stopped fighting,” Machado wrote. “Soon we will embrace each other in complete freedom!”
Before these latest releases, the Venezuelan justice system had granted freedom to 379 political prisoners under this law, which was promised, under pressure from Washington, by interim president Delcy Rodriguez. In total, 1,557 detainees have requested their release under the law, according to Rodriguez.
Mme Rodriguez has initiated a normalization of relations with Washington, severed since 2019, since taking power after the capture of President Nicolas Maduro in a US military operation on January 3.
