CAARACAS, Jan 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, her latest major reform since the US military abducted the country’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife earlier this month.
“We have decided to push ahead with a general amnesty law that covers the whole period of political violence from 1999 to the present day,” Rodriguez said on Friday.
Speaking at a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military officials and other government leaders, the acting president said the National Assembly would take up the amnesty bill with urgency.
“May this law serve to heal the wounds left by the political confrontation fuelled by violence and extremism,” Rodriguez said in the prerecorded televised event.
“May it serve to redirect justice in our country, and may it serve to redirect coexistence among Venezuelans,” she said.
Rodriguez also announced the shutdown of El Helicoide, a notorious secret service prison in Caracas, where torture and other human rights abuses have been documented by independent organisations.
El Helicoide, she said, will be transformed into a sports, social and cultural centre for the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Rodriguez made her announcement before officials whom former prisoners and human rights watchdogs have accused of overseeing El Helicoide and other detention facilities.
The Venezuelan-based prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal estimates that 711 people are in detention in facilities across Venezuela over their political activities. Of those, 183 have been sentenced, the group said.
Foro Penal President Alfredo Romero welcomed the planned amnesty but said it must apply to all prisoners “without discrimination”.
“A general amnesty is welcome as long as its elements and conditions include all of civil society, without discrimination, that it does not become a cloak of impunity, and that it contributes to dismantling the repressive apparatus of political persecution,” Romero wrote in a post on social media.
Foro Penal has calculated that some 302 prisoners have been released by Rodriguez’s government in the aftermath of the abduction of Maduro by the US.
The organisation later released a video clip on social media of what is said showed the moment that human rights worker Eduardo Torres was released from prison on Friday night, following his detention since May 2025.
Families and rights advocates have long demanded that charges and convictions against detainees who are considered political prisoners be dropped.
Government officials – who deny holding political prisoners and say those jailed have committed crimes – report that more than 600 people have been released from prison, but they have not been clear on the timeline and appear to be including prisoners released in previous years. — NNN-AGENCIES