Venezuela’s new amnesty law has a chilly response from opposition and detainees’ families

Mem­bers of Venezuela ’s op­po­si­tion, pris­on­ers’ rights groups and rel­a­tives of peo­ple long de­tained for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons gave a luke­warm re­cep­tion Fri­day to an amnesty mea­sure ex­pect­ed to free hun­dreds of ac­tivists and hu­man rights de­fend­ers.

Some viewed the law as a small but sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for the thou­sands tar­get­ed dur­ing the rul­ing par­ty’s 27-year tenure. Oth­ers con­sid­ered it a mock­ery of the pain of fam­i­lies and peo­ple be­hind bars — par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­bers of the mil­i­tary, who were ex­clud­ed from the mea­sure.

Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez on Thurs­day signed the amnesty mea­sure in­to law, sig­nalling a ma­jor shift in pol­i­cy fol­low­ing last month’s stun­ning U.S. mil­i­tary raid in the cap­i­tal, Cara­cas, to cap­ture then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

Scep­ti­cism over han­dling of re­quests

Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties for decades de­nied hold­ing any po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers. But Ro­dríguez said dur­ing the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny that the law showed lead­ers were “let­ting go of a lit­tle in­tol­er­ance and open­ing new av­enues for pol­i­tics in Venezuela.”

Venezuela-based pris­on­ers’ rights group Foro Pe­nal es­ti­mates that more than 600 peo­ple are in cus­tody for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons.

Un­der the new law, tri­al courts must ap­prove each amnesty re­quest with­in 15 days. How­ev­er, the re­quire­ment for ju­di­cial over­sight has fu­eled skep­ti­cism about how ap­pli­ca­tions will be han­dled.

“The law ben­e­fits a sig­nif­i­cant group of peo­ple, but the essence of the prob­lem Venezuela is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing re­gard­ing po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion re­mains,” Al­fre­do Romero, pres­i­dent of Foro Pe­nal, told re­porters Fri­day. “The same judges and pros­e­cu­tors who have un­just­ly or ar­bi­trar­i­ly ac­cused peo­ple are the same judges whom the law it­self des­ig­nates to in­ter­pret the law in or­der to grant ben­e­fits.”

Romero un­der­scored that the new law is not a pre­req­ui­site for the gov­ern­ment to free pris­on­ers, like it has done since Jan. 8, when Ro­dríguez’s gov­ern­ment an­nounced it would re­lease “a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber.” Foro Pe­nal has count­ed 448 re­leas­es since then.

The bill’s pur­pose is to grant peo­ple “a gen­er­al and full amnesty for crimes or of­fens­es com­mit­ted” dur­ing spe­cif­ic pe­ri­ods since 1999 that were marked by po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven con­flicts in Venezuela, in­clud­ing “acts of po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed vi­o­lence” in the con­text of the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. The af­ter­math of that elec­tion led to protests and the ar­rest of more than 2,000 peo­ple, in­clud­ing mi­nors.

Some could be left out

The amnesty ex­cludes those con­vict­ed of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, war crimes, mur­der, drug traf­fick­ing or cor­rup­tion. It al­so de­nies re­lief to peo­ple “who are be­ing pros­e­cut­ed or may be pros­e­cut­ed or con­vict­ed for pro­mot­ing, in­sti­gat­ing, so­lic­it­ing, in­vok­ing, fa­vor­ing, fa­cil­i­tat­ing, fi­nanc­ing, or par­tic­i­pat­ing in armed or force­ful ac­tions against” Venezuela “by for­eign states, cor­po­ra­tions or in­di­vid­u­als.”

That could leave out mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion who have sup­port­ed U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s pol­i­cy to­ward Venezuela, in­clud­ing No­bel Peace Prize lau­re­ate María Co­ri­na Macha­do.

Rel­a­tives of those de­tained have called on the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, specif­i­cal­ly its top diplo­mat in Venezuela, Lau­ra Dogu, to pres­sure Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment for their re­lease. Oth­ers, like Clau­dia Mo­ril­lo, the wife of a pris­on­er, have ap­pealed di­rect­ly to the hu­man­i­ty of Venezue­lan of­fi­cials.

Mo­ril­lo’s hus­band, Jhon Had­er Be­tan­curt, is serv­ing a 30-year sen­tence for trea­son and re­bel­lion af­ter be­ing pho­tographed shak­ing hands with an op­po­si­tion leader in 2019. Al­though Foro Pe­nal clas­si­fies him as a “po­lit­i­cal pris­on­er,” Mo­ril­lo not­ed that he re­mains in­el­i­gi­ble for amnesty be­cause au­thor­i­ties la­belled his case one of mil­i­tary re­bel­lion even though he is a civil­ian.

“Put your hand on your heart,” she urged of­fi­cials. “If we are tru­ly talk­ing about rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, act truth­ful­ly and just­ly.”

The law al­so al­lows peo­ple liv­ing in ex­ile to seek amnesty through a lawyer, re­mov­ing the re­quire­ment to re­turn to Venezuela to file in per­son. Once some­one abroad has filed a re­quest for amnesty, the law shields them from ar­rest when they re­turn to the coun­try for their sched­uled court rul­ings.

Ma­g­a­l­li Me­da, Macha­do’s 2024 cam­paign man­ag­er, took to so­cial me­dia to re­ject the law. Me­da has been in ex­ile since May, when she and oth­er Macha­do staffers left the Ar­gen­tine diplo­mat­ic com­pound in Cara­cas, where they had shel­tered for more than a year to avoid ar­rest.

“Who can be free in Venezuela un­der these terms of ‘amnesty’?” she wrote on X. “They are try­ing to white­wash their im­age. They want us to for­get their crimes and act with im­puni­ty for­ev­er. They want a coun­try of slaves and ac­com­plices, and they in­tend to ex­pel any­one who isn’t one of them.” —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press