Dozens of relatives and activists from the NGO Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (Clipp) denounced this Wednesday before the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) the torture that, they claimed, these detainees have received in various prisons in Venezuela.
Andreína Baduel, activist and sister of political prisoner Josnars Baduel, told the press that they still have not received a “timely response” to the repression registered last week inside the Rodeo I prison, on the outskirts of Caracas, where a protest by foreign detainees ended with gas and mistreatment, according to family members.
Outside the MP, Baduel said that they would deliver “a document with 12 requests where we ask for an independent investigation.”
He also demanded that the Prosecutor’s Office, now led by the newly appointed Larry Devoe, publish the videos of the protest inside the prison, after this institution assured that it investigated the case and verified compliance with the “rigorous procedures and protocols” within the prison.
Baduel, along with a group of family members, entered the institution’s headquarters to deliver the petition, while the rest of the protesters gathered in front of the Prosecutor’s Office headquarters, where they protested with banners and photographs of the political prisoners.
In the protest they asked for the closure of the “torture centers”, as they call the prisons, in particular El Rodeo I, where there are at least 24 foreign prisoners, 20 of them Colombians, according to the records of this organization.
Cruel treatment continues
For her part, Jessica Castro, niece of the detainee Gustavo Hernández, denounced that cruel treatment continues against the detainees inside the prison, among which she pointed out the limitation of food to only four days a week, as well as keeping them naked in punishment areas, among other mistreatment.
“We need and demand that the International Red Cross enter because we need them to make a report on what each of our boys needs. We cannot let them die under the regime as has happened with many others,” he claimed.
According to Clipp, last Wednesday the detainees of El Rodeo I began a protest to demand the conditions of their imprisonment, including the lack of sanitation in their cells, where – family members assured – they have open latrines.
The claim, the NGO said, culminated in a repression in which tear gas and pepper spray were used, causing asphyxiation in some detainees. Subsequently, several family members, including Baduel, were prevented from visiting for reporting the incident.
