Venezuela: Free Venezuelan Prisoners Of Conscience

Nicolás Maduro’s government’s long-standing policy of repression to silence any form of real or perceived dissent reached a historic peak after the 28 July 2024 election, which saw over 2,000 people arbitrarily detained for political reasons, many of them charged with seemingly unfounded counts of terrorism and incitement of hatred, including vulnerable groups such as children and people living with disabilities. According to the local organization Foro Penal, as of 17 February 2025, at least 1,061 people remain arbitrarily detained for political reasons, including 121 women, four teenagers, and 58 whose fate and whereabouts are reportedly unknown.

Within this policy of repression, the government has continually harassed, prosecuted and censored activists and civil society organizations working to protect the rights of Venezuelans amidst a complex humanitarian emergency and a deep human rights crisis that is making Venezuelans flee in unprecedented numbers in search of safety and protection. By November 2024, over 7.8 million had fled Venezuela.

As Amnesty International has repeatedly denounced, human rights defenders in Venezuela are at a constant risk of harassment, attacks and detention. Nicolás Maduro’s government is currently pursuing several initiatives to control and silence human rights and civil society organizations. The bill adopted in August 2024 titled ‘Law for the audit, regularization, action and financing of non-governmental and related organizations’, or so-called ‘anti-NGO law’, imposes strict controls that include handing over lists of members and personnel and their assets, lists of donors, and registration of financial movements. Non-compliance with registration requirements could lead to the closure of civil society organizations and possible criminal prosecutions. The bill’s provisions began entering into force starting in February 2025.

Since 2020, reports from the UN independent international fact-finding mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (FFM) have thoroughly documented hundreds of cases of extrajudicial executions; enforced disappearances; arbitrary detentions; and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment committed in the country since 2014; as well as the ways in which the justice system serves as a tool for the government’s policy of repression, concluding that some of these international crimes and human rights violations amount to crimes against humanity. Specifically in 2024, the FFM concluded that it has “reasonable grounds to believe that the crime of persecution on political grounds has been committed during the timeframe covered by its mandate”.

Since November 2021, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is conducting a criminal investigation into the situation in Venezuela, specifically regarding the “[c]rimes against humanity of deprivation of liberty or other serious deprivation of physical liberty (…); torture (…); rape and/or other forms of sexual violence of comparable severity (…); and politically motivated persecution against persons detained (…), which were committed since at least April 2017, by members of the State security forces, civil authorities and pro-government persons (or groups called “collectives”).