Throughout its history, many people have been arrested and imprisoned in Venezuela for political reasons, mainly during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez and that of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 20th century and during the Bolivarian Revolution in the 21st century.[1]
The Venezuelan non-governmental organization Foro Penal, which keeps track of political prisoners in the country, has elaborated a definition for political prisoners during the Bolivarian Revolution:[2]
Foro Penal also divides into six different categories the objectives or purposes that determine whether a persecution or repressive action is political or not:[3]
During the government of Antonio Guzmán Blanco, political repression was constant and overwhelming. Many people were silenced for fear of reprisals. It is estimated that thousands of people were persecuted, imprisoned and exiled, some of which never returned to the country. This also had a negative impact on Venezuelan society, which hindered the development of democracy and freedom of expression in Venezuela.[4]
Initially, Juan Vicente Gómez began his government by granting freedom to political prisoners and reestablishing freedom of the press, but he refuses to dissolve the National Congress and call for a constituent assembly, a petition that was quite popular at the time.[5] Despite the facade of liberties promoted by Gómez, there were early cases of repression of the press and certain political sectors. From 1913 onwards, repression was exacerbated, the year in which Gómez decided to remain in power.[6]
During the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, people who were imprisoned were shackled with shackles and steel bolts on their feet and were victims of numerous tortures. The shackles held the prisoners' ankles, immobilizing and injuring them. Poison was often put in the food of prisoners under assassination orders, and crushed glass in their drinks to cause greater suffering at the time of death. Opponents to the Gómez regime were killed, imprisoned or disappeared. Torture methods ranged from the most conventional to the death penalty.[7] [8]
Many of political prisoners were sent to forced labor, the most famous of which was the construction of the Transandean Highway in the Venezuelan Andes. One of the cruelest torturers in La Rotunda was a common prisoner named Nereo Pacheco who, by orders of Gómez, was used by the guards as an element of punishment against the political prisoners.[9]
The dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez created a secret police, the Dirección de Seguridad Nacional, that was in charge of arresting, torturing and imprisoning political opponents,[10] and was characterized by its excessive repression of dissidence and torture of detainees. In the National Security headquarters throughout the country, political prisoners were subjected to different methods of torture, such as the ice chamber, standing up barefoot in a car rims, blows with steel balls, electric bands, batons and other forms of physical mistreatment.
At that time, the Colón Square in Los Caobos, Caracas, was the epicenter of student protests. During the celebration of Columbus Day in 1951, several Venezuelans who were protesting against the dictatorship were arrested: José Amín, Miguel Astor Martínez, Antonio Ávila Barrios, Francisco Barrios, Federico Estaba, Gerardo Estaba, Luis José Estaba, Darío Hernández, Manuel Vicente Magallanes, Eloy Martínez Méndez, Salom Meza Espinosa and Juan Regalado. This group was known as The Twelve Apostles because they were a dozen detainees. The twelve apostles were forced to stand together for three days, deprived of their physiological needs. Each one was tortured in a personalized way.[11]
Although the Pérez Jiménez regime announced the closure of the labor camp on Guasina Island on 17 December 1952, in Delta Amacuro state, records such as the work Se llamaba SN, by José Vicente Abreu, document the forced labor and subhuman conditions on the island.
On 29 September 1952, in the Turén Municipality of the Portuguesa state, a peasant uprising against the national government began, attacking a National Guard outpost. The movement was strongly repressed, resulting in more than a hundred deaths and several arrests.[12]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) denounced that during the 2017 Venezuelan protests "several thousand people have been arbitrarily detained, many of them have been victims of ill-treatment and even torture".[13] Some of the victims of enforced disappearance have not yet appeared, as is the case of Hugo Marino.[14] Since 2015, at least twelve political prisoners have died in custody.[15] According to the NGO PROVEA, between 2013 and 2023, 53,075 people were detained for political reasons or in the context of illegal actions by police and/or military.[16] By October 2022, the NGO Foro Penal registered 245 political prisoners in Venezuela. At least 166 had been imprisoned without having been convicted and one is a minor.[17]
The individuals listed below are those whose detentions have taken place in the 21st century and have been qualified as arbitrary by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, prisoners of conscience according to Amnesty International or classified as political prisoners by the non-governmental organization Foro Penal, among other reasons:
See also: Detention of Juan Requesens.
See also: Detention of Rocío San Miguel.
Among the current political prisoners are the following:
| Prisoner | Arrest date | Detention time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Héctor Rovain | 19 April 2003 | ||
| Erasmo José Bolívar | 19 April 2003 | ||
| Luis Molina | 19 April 2003 | ||
| 23 November 2004 | |||
| 23 November 2004 | |||
| Juan Caguaripano | 6 August 2017 | ||
| 8 March 2018 | |||
| 5 August 2018 | |||
| 21 September 2018 | |||
| 30 November 2018 | |||
| 19 March 2019 | |||
| 25 February 2021 | |||
| 2 July 2021 | |||
| Ángel Vivas | 10 May 2022 | ||
| 21 November 2023 | |||
| Juan Freites | 23 January 2024 | ||
| Luis Camacaro | 23 January 2024 | ||
| Guillermo López | 24 January 2024 | ||
| Rocío San Miguel | 9 February 2024 |