CARACAS (WS News) – At least 60 people detained during protests over Venezuela’s disputed presidential election in July have been released from prison, local rights group Foro Penal said on Saturday.
“Some political prisoners have been released since early in the morning,” said the group’s director, Alfredo Romero, in a post on X in the morning.
He said 10 people had so far been released from a prison known as Yare III, and an unspecified number of others from Las Crisalidas women’s prison. Romero later said, in an Instagram post, that 50 young adults had been released from the Tocoron prison.
A video he posted showed some of them walking along a highway outside the prison, to cheers and applause from a group of onlookers.
The number of prisoner releases was expected to rise during the day.
The prosecutor’s office and communications ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to Foro Penal, at least 1,800 people were arrested after the presidential election on July 28, which kept President Nicolas Maduro in power despite heavily contested results. Maduro took office in 2013, and is set to begin his next six-year term in January.
The election sparked deadly anti-government protests, and the opposition, rights groups and unions have accused Maduro’s administration of cracking down on dissent.
Venezuela’s electoral authorities and top court said
Maduro won the elections, without showing all the voting tallies, prompting supporters of opposition candidate
Edmundo Gonzalez to accuse the ruling party of fraud.
Maduro said last week that he would ask the attorney general’s office to review any arrests in which authorities may have made mistakes.
More than 80 teenagers were released from prison in September, Foro Penal previously said, after being arrested during the post-election protests.
Attorney General Tarek Saab on Friday said he had asked to review at least 225 cases. He has said the protests left 28 people dead and nearly 200 injured.
Activists and relatives of some of those who were arrested said those people did not participate in the protests. They have also alleged that some prisoners have endured torture in detention.
