Families across Venezuela continued to wait anxiously outside prisons on Friday, as uncertainty surrounded a new mass amnesty law enacted by interim authorities following the US-backed removal of Nicolas Maduro.
The National Assembly unanimously approved the law on Thursday, raising hopes that hundreds of political prisoners could soon be released.
However, opposition figures have criticised the legislation, which contains carve-outs for certain offences previously used to target Maduro’s political opponents. It explicitly excludes those prosecuted for “promoting” or “facilitating… armed or forceful actions” against Venezuela’s sovereignty by foreign actors — accusations that Interim President Delcy Rodriguez has levelled against opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who hopes to return from the United States.
The law also exempts members of the security forces convicted of terrorism-related activities.
“Many of us are aware that the amnesty law does not cover our relatives,” Hiowanka Avila, 39, told AFP outside Rodeo 1 prison near Caracas, where many detainees are former soldiers or officers. Her brother, Henryberth Rivas, 30, was arrested in 2018 for allegedly participating in an assassination attempt against Maduro using armed drones.
National Assembly deputy Jorge Arreaza stated that “the military justice system will handle” cases involving armed forces members and grant benefits where appropriate.
A long wait
Relatives of prisoners across the country have been waiting outside jails for weeks in the hope of their loved ones’ release.
Hundreds have already been granted conditional release by Rodriguez’s government since the deadly US raid that seized Maduro, but the NGO Foro Penal says around 650 remain detained. Its director, Alfredo Romero, noted on Friday that receiving amnesty “is not automatic” and would require a judicial process, widely viewed as influenced by Maduro’s regime.
Outside the Caracas jail known as Zone 7, Narwin Gil demanded “action, not words.” She had begun a hunger strike on 14 February, calling for the swift passage of the amnesty bill, which had faced repeated delays since Rodriguez proposed it late last month.
“We are waiting for those actions, and for them to happen as soon as possible, because we need to go home,” Gil said.
Rodriguez defended her government on state television, saying, “We are building a more democratic, more just, and freer Venezuela, and it must be with the effort of everyone.”
Completely free
Opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa, an ally of Machado, announced his release from detention shortly after the bill’s passage.
Earlier this month, he had been freed from prison but was quickly re-detained and placed under house arrest. “I am now completely free,” Guanipa wrote on social media, calling for the release of all political prisoners and for exiles to be allowed to return. He later rallied with supporters in his hometown of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second city.
Rights groups have criticised the legislation over concerns it could be used to excuse abuses under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez. Exiled opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia said on Friday that “there would be no lasting reconciliation without memory or responsibility.”
“A responsible amnesty is the transition from fear to the rule of law. "It is the pledge that power will not be exercised again without limits and that the law will be above force,” Gonzalez Urrutia wrote on X. Exiled in Spain, he is widely considered the legitimate winner of the 2024 presidential election, which Maduro was declared to have won amid fraud allegations.
In recent years, hundreds — possibly thousands — of Venezuelans have been jailed over alleged plots to overthrow Maduro, who was ultimately seized in the US raid on 3 January and taken to New York to face trial on drug trafficking and other charges.
Rodriguez, formerly Maduro’s vice president, assumed the presidency with the consent of US President Donald Trump, who has since taken control of Venezuela’s oil sales and demanded a share of the profits.
