CARACAS: Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors.<\/p>\n
But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country \u2014 which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention like the one that ousted former president Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n
The bill now goes before interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who pushed for the legislation under pressure from Washington, after she rose to power following Maduro\u2019s capture during a US military raid on January 3.<\/p>\n
The law is meant to apply retroactively to 1999 \u2014 including the coup against previous leader Hugo Chavez, the 2002 oil strike, and the 2024 riots against Maduro\u2019s disputed reelection \u2014 giving hope to families that loved ones will finally come home.<\/p>\n
Some fear, however, the law could be used by the government to pardon its own and selectively deny freedom to real prisoners of conscience.<\/p>\n
Article 9 of the bill lists those excluded from amnesty as \u201cpersons who are being prosecuted or may be convicted for promoting, instigating, soliciting, invoking, favoring, facilitating, financing or participating in armed actions or the use of force against the people, sovereignty, and territorial integrity\u201d of Venezuela \u201cby foreign states, corporations or individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly had delayed several sittings meant to pass the amnesty bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scope of the law must be restricted to victims of human rights violations and expressly exclude those accused of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including state, paramilitary and non-state actors,\u201d UN human rights experts said in a statement from Geneva Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Venezuelans have been jailed in recent years over plots, real or imagined, to overthrow the government of Rodriguez\u2019s predecessor and former boss Maduro, who was in the end toppled in the deadly US military raid.<\/p>\n
Family members have reported torture, maltreatment and untreated health problems among the inmates.<\/p>\n
The NGO Foro Penal says about 450 prisoners have been released since Maduro\u2019s ouster, but more than 600 others remain behind bars.<\/p>\n
Family members have been clamoring for their release for weeks, holding vigils outside prisons.<\/p>\n
One small group, in the capital Caracas, staged a nearly weeklong hunger strike which ended Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe National Assembly has the opportunity to show whether there truly is a genuine will for national reconciliation,\u201d Foro Penal director Gonzalo Himiob wrote on X Thursday ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the chief of the US military command responsible for strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats off South America held talks in Caracas with Rodriguez and top ministers Vladimir Padrino and Diosdado Cabello .<\/p>\n
All three were staunch Maduro backers who for years echoed his \u201canti-imperialist\u201d rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez\u2019s interim government has been governing with US President Donald Trump\u2019s consent, provided she grants access to Venezuela\u2019s vast oil resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CARACAS: Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors. But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country \u2014 which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94022,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94000\/revisions\/94022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}