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11-01-2026
GUATIRE: Venezuela released a number of imprisoned high-profile opposition figures, activists and journalists both citizens and foreigners, Thursday in what the government described as a gesture to “seek peace” less than a week after former President Nicolas Maduro was captured by US forces to face drug-trafficking charges.
US President Donald Trump, who has been pressuring Maduro allies now leading the country to fold to his vision for the future of the oil-rich nation, said the releases came at the request of the United States. In the interview on Fox News on Thursday night, Trump praised the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, saying; “they’ve been great. … Everything we’ve wanted, they’ve given us.”
Jorge Rodríguez, brother of the acting president and head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said a “significant number” of people would be freed, but as of late Thursday night it was still not clear who or how many people would be released. The US government and Venezuela’s opposition have long demanded the widespread release of imprisoned politicians, critics and members of civil society. The Venezuelan government insists it does not hold prisoners for political reasons.
“Consider this a gesture by the Bolivarian (Venezuelan) government, which is broadly intended to seek peace,” he announced.
High profile releases
Among those released was Biagio Pilieri, an opposition leader who was part of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to Foro Penal, an advocacy group for prisoners based in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Also released was Enrique Marquez, a former electoral authority and candidate in the 2024 presidential election, the organization said.
Videos posted by journalists on social media show Marquez and Pilieri embracing loved ones on the streets outside the prison. One video showed Marquez beaming and video-calling family members, saying, “Soon I will be with you all.”
Five Spanish citizens including the prominent Venezuelan-Spanish lawyer and human rights activist Rocio San Miguel were also released in the afternoon and, as the night wore on, reports trickled out of more detainees walking free. Relatives who waited for hours outside a prison in Guatire, about an hour east of Caracas, briefly chanted, “Libertad! Libertad!” meaning “Freedom! Freedom!”
Venezuela’s government has a history of releasing people imprisoned for political reasons including real and perceived opponents during moments of high tension to signal openness to dialogue. The releases on Thursday were the first since Maduro was deposed.
Human rights groups and members of the opposition were encouraged by the move, though it wasn’t clear yet what it represented whether the growing pains of a government in transition or a symbolic overture to placate the Trump administration, which has allowed Maduro’s loyalists to stay in power as it exerts pressure through crippling sanctions.
For opposition leader Machado whom Trump has snubbed by endorsing Rodríguez to lead the transition, the gesture was “an act of moral restitution.”
“Nothing brings back the stolen years,” she said in an audio message from exile addressed to families of released detainees, urging them to take comfort in the knowledge that “injustice will not be eternal and that the truth, though badly wounded, eventually prevails.”
Alfredo Romero, president of Foro Penal, expressed cautious hope “that this is indeed the beginning of the dismantling of a repressive system in Venezuela … and not a mere gesture, a charade of releasing some prisoners and incarcerating others.” (Int’l News Desk)
