Venezuela Frees Over 130 People Imprisoned After Disputed Election

From inside a sweltering Tocorón prison on Sunday, the detained peered out at their anguished relatives, throwing kisses from small windows and yelling “Soon!”

Nearly three months after Venezuela’s authoritarian government arrested roughly 2,000 people in a crackdown following a disputed presidential election, officials have announced plans to release more than 200 prisoners.

By Sunday, at least 131 people had been freed, according to Foro Penal, a local watchdog group. Some analysts viewed the mass release, in part, as a gesture by the government to gain something from the incoming Trump administration.

But the announcement left another 1,800 or so families in a state of anguished limbo, hoping their sons, daughters, siblings, husbands and wives would also be among those let go. Over the weekend, hundreds of people gathered outside Tocorón, a prison two hours from Caracas, hoping to see their loved ones emerge.

Just a few weeks ago, the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, had bragged about packing Tocorón with his political opponents, who he called “fascist criminals.”

The government has charged most of them with terrorism, an accusation that has become a common way to target political foes. Many of the imprisoned have denied the charges, with their families telling The New York Times that their relatives had not committed any crimes.

Belkys Altuve, 59, was among those waiting in a blinding sun. Two of her sons and two of her grandchildren, all in their 20s, had been locked up since July 28, she said, and were charged with terrorism after they left the house in search of food and drinks for a birthday party.

That day was Election Day and Ms. Altuve had cast a vote for Mr. Maduro, whose movement has run the country for a generation. She had believed in his call for a socialist revolution, she said.

Now, “I feel like they betrayed me by taking my children away from me,” she said.

As of late Sunday, her children and grandchildren remained in custody.

For years, crackdowns in Venezuela have been accompanied by small reprieves, like prisoner releases, a cycle that has worn hearts and minds thin.

Tamara Taraciuk Broner, an expert on Venezuela for the Inter-American Dialogue, a research organization in Washington, said prisoner releases were almost always connected to a political goal.

In this case, she added, Mr. Maduro might be trying to communicate to President-elect Donald J. Trump that he is willing to ease up on human rights violations in exchange for favorable treatment.

In his first term, Mr. Trump imposed harsh measures, including stiff economic sanctions, meant to try to oust the Venezuelan leader.

The Maduro government is “clearly more afraid” of punitive measures under the Trump administration than under President Biden said Ms. Taraciuk Broner. “They want to show that they would be willing to negotiate.”

Tarek William Saab, Venezuela’s attorney general, told The Times that those who remained in detention were being held because they were being charged with serious crimes “and it is feared that they may evade prosecution.”

He added, in a text message, that his office “has not received any complaints of human rights violations during the protests, nor during the arrests.”

The release comes just days after the death of Jesús Manuel Martínez, an opposition organizer with Type 2 diabetes and cardiac problems who died in government detention. Opposition leaders have accused the government of denying him proper medical care, though Mr. Saab said he had been hospitalized since October.

The terrorism charges carry a sentence of up to 30 years, said Martha Tineo, a Venezuela human rights lawyer. The released prisoners have not been cleared of their charges, and will still have to fight their cases in court.

Outside Tocorón, many people said they had come from hours away, and several wore T-shirts bearing the faces of their imprisoned loved ones framed by a Venezuelan flag.

Yajaira Gutiérrez, 44, said she, too, had voted for Mr. Maduro on July 28. Her son, age 21, had not voted at all, she said. But on Aug. 7, he was taken from their home shortly after midnight. He has also been charged with terrorism.

“It doesn’t seem fair that I have given everything for him,” Ms. Gutiérrez said of Mr. Maduro, “and they have punished me like this.”

The July vote pitted Mr. Maduro against Edmundo González, a diplomat who had the backing of the country’s popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado.

Mr. Maduro, who has a long history of rigging elections in his favor, declared victory almost as soon as polls closed, but has not released tally sheets to back up that claim.

In response, the González-Machado movement collected tally sheets from more than 80 percent of polling stations, posting them online and asserting that receipts showed Mr. González had won almost 70 percent of the vote.

The United States and other nations have recognized Mr. González as the election’s legitimate winner, while independent monitors have said Mr. Maduro’s declaration is not credible.

The government crackdown began just as voting ended on July 28, with Mr. Maduro encouraging people to report neighbors who expressed disloyalty and the police setting up checkpoints in some neighborhoods and reviewing telephones for signs of opposition support.

While the Maduro government has always gone after opposition organizers, particularly prominent leaders, it has never detained so many people who have such limited connection to politics for so long.

Luis Mata, 25, from the Venezuelan island of Margarita, was among those released from Tocorón over the weekend. He is a human-rights activist, he said, and had been detained once before, for nine days in 2017 amid anti-Maduro protests.

This time around, he said, he was forced to strip naked, called a terrorist and beaten on the neck after entering the prison, he said. During his stay, he shared a cell with a half-dozen others and was given rotten meat to eat and contaminated water to drink.

He was detained with 47 others from Margarita island and was one of just eight who were released, he said. And so the day after his release, he returned to the prison to see if others from Margarita would be set free.

Many of those waiting outside Tocorón were scared to speak, fearful that it would lead to retaliation. Mr. Mata said he was not.

“You’ve already imprisoned me,” he said, addressing the government. “You’ve already tortured me. What else do you want? What else do you want from me? What else do you want from us? To shut us up? You will not be able to shut us up, because our call for freedom will always rise up.”