Since the intervention of at least four prisons in 2023 which, according to the Venezuelan Government, led to the dismantling of the criminal gang The Aragua Trainprison activity maintained a low profile in Venezuela.
Now, For the first time in the history of the country, prisoners from 20 prisons and more than 30 dungeons in the country, They have been on hunger strike for more than 48 hoursin protest “against the procedural delay, overcrowding and violations of human rights,” Carlos Nieto, director of the NGO Una Ventana a la Libertad, told EL TIEMPO.
Although the authorities have not commented, The government of Nicolás Maduro dismissed the Minister of Penitentiary Affairs, Celsa Bautistain the face of the crisis that has been generated.
Bautista was in office for a year and is now replaced by the deputy Julio García Zerpa. “I appointed Julio García Zerpa as the new Minister of Popular Power for the Penitentiary Service, to continue promoting a system adapted to new times, safe, stable and with respect for Human Rights,” Maduro reported in a message on X.
Maduro’s message is the only statement from a state official that has been known so far.
Why are they on strike in Venezuelan prisons?
“My son had to eat green, spoiled meat”
The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons (OVP) reported that the detainees demand a “timely update of their counts, granting humanitarian measures, transfers to the prisons of origin and the cessation of the boarding plans promoted by the Ministry which, in their opinion, have not provided them with any solution to their legal situation.”
(Also read: Why does Venezuela insist that the Aragua Train does not exist and that it is a ‘fiction created by the international media’?)
They also ask for respect for the redemption of sentences that, they claim, have been unfulfilled. They also denounce the procedural delay of the system and alleged mistreatment by officials, as well as “food insufficiency” and general overcrowding estimated at 200 percent.
The prison population in Venezuela is estimated at about 54,000 prisoners, according to official figures. Several of the prisons where the hunger strike is taking place were intervened in 2023 by the government, which then promised to put an end to “the prison mafias in Venezuela” dedicated to extortion, drug trafficking and human trafficking.
“My son had to eat green meat (decomposed)“he said to the AFPunder anonymity, the mother of a prisoner transferred from Tocuyito (Carabobo, center), to a prison in the state of Mérida (west), about 500 kilometers from the courts that are handling his case.
(You may be interested in: These are the cities in the United States where the Aragua Train is already committing crimes)
Through X, the NGO published several videos showing dozens of prisoners – men and women – singing the national anthem and displaying banners inside the penitentiary centers.
In a document sent to the OVP, a group of inmates – whose number was not provided – requested that deputies, judges, the Public Ministry and public defense appear “so that the practice of the judicial revolution plan becomes effective,” which contemplated solving in 60 days the overcrowding and procedural delay in Venezuelan prisons, as announced by President Nicolás Maduro in 2021.
We have a serious problem of procedural delays, judicial guarantees, overcrowding, health, corruption…
“We have a serious problem of procedural delays, judicial guarantees, overcrowding, health, corruption; we have a serious problem of food and arms and drug trafficking,” Humberto Prado, director of the OVP, told EFE.
What do the Venezuelan authorities say about the strike?
The OVP informed Efe that is documenting the cases and that has sent communications to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Organization Against Torture, Amnesty International, the rapporteur of the Committee Against Torture in Geneva, the Office of the High Commissioner and the International Federation for human rights.
ANA MARÍA RODRÍGUEZ BRAZÓN – EL TIEMPO CORRESPONDENT – CARACAS
With information from EFE and AFP
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