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24-02-2026
CARACAS: A total of 1,557 Venezuelan political prisoners have applied for amnesty under a new law introduced on Thursday, the country’s National Assembly President has said.
Jorge Rodríguez, brother of Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez and an ally of former President Nicolas Maduro, also said “hundred” of prisoners had already been released.
Among them is politician Juan Pablo Guanipa, one of several opposition voices to have criticized the law for excluding certain prisoners.
The US has urged Venezuela to speed up its release of political prisoners since US forces seized Maduro in a raid on 3 January. Venezuela’s socialist government has always denied holding political prisoners.
At a news conference on Saturday Jorge Rodríguez said 1,557 release requests were being addressed “immediately” and ultimately the legislation would extend to 11,000 prisoners.
The government first announced days after Maduro’s capture, on 8 January, that “a significant number” of prisoners would be freed as a goodwill gesture.
Opposition and human rights groups have said the government under Maduro used detentions of political prisoners to stamp out dissent and silence critics for years.
These groups have also criticized the new law. One frequently cited criticism is that it would not extend amnesty to those who called for foreign armed intervention in Venezuela, specialist Luis Fajardo says.
He noted that law professor Juan Carlos Apitz, of the Central University of Venezuela, told CNN Espanol that that part of the amnesty law “has a name and surname”. “That paragraph is the Maria Corina Machado paragraph.”
It is not clear if the amnesty would actually cover Machado, who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Fajardo said.
He added that other controversial aspects of the law include the apparent exclusion from amnesty benefits of dozens of military officers involved in rebellions against the Maduro administration over the years.
On Saturday, Rodríguez said it is “releases from Zona Seven of El Helicoide that they’re handling first”.
Those jailed at the infamous prison in Caracas would be released “over the next few hours”, he added.
Activists say some family members of those imprisoned in the facility have gone on hunger strike to demand the release of their relatives.
US President Donald Trump said that El Helicoide would be closed after Maduro’s capture. Maduro is awaiting trial in custody in the US alongside his wife Cilia Flores and has pleaded not guilty to drugs and weapons charges, saying that he is a “prisoner of war”.
Day before yesterday, Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa has announced on social media that he has been freed after “almost nine months of unjust imprisonment”.
His comments come shortly after the country’s interim President, Delcy Rodríguez, signed an amnesty bill approved by its National Assembly that could lead to the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
Rodríguez’s interim government has faced pressure from the US to speed up the release of Venezuela’s remaining political prisoners after delays to the law.
However, Guanipa described the bill as a “flawed document” that excludes many Venezuelans who remain “unjustly” behind bars.
Guanipa is the leader of Venezuela’s centre-right Justice First party and was a former vice-president of the National Assembly. (Int’l News Desk)
