At least 16 detention centers joined, in the last 24 hours, the prison hunger strike that has been taking place in Venezuela since Sunday, so this Tuesday The total number of penitentiaries and dungeons rose to 51 of police stations with protests from inmates, according to NGO records Venezuelan Prisons Observatory (OVP).
The non-governmental organization explained to the news agency EFE that among the new establishments in protest are three men’s prisons, two women’s annexes and 11 preventive detention centers located in police headquarters.
So, The hunger strike has spread through Caracas and 17 of the 23 states of the countrywith no reports of protests in the remaining six regions.
According to complaints published on social networks by the OVP and Una Ventana a la Libertad (UVL), another NGO that defends the rights of the prison population, There are thousands of inmates who remain on strikewithout the Nicolás Maduro regime having commented on the matter.
The Ministry of Penitentiary Services has not commented on the strike and, instead, has shared images through prison population in the country.”
This Tuesday, the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduroannounced in
Bautista’s last message before knowing his replacement was published, on the same social network, on Monday night, when he reported the beginning of a “legal approach” in the El Rodeo III prison, located on the outskirts of Caracas, one of the prisons on strike, according to OVP and UVL reports.
“We carry out psychosocial evaluations electronically according to the requests of the corresponding courts, as well as the preparation of records of conduct, job offers and calculations of redemptions,” said Bautista.
Women deprived of their liberty National Institute of Women’s Guidance (INOF)—the only female prison in the country—also they joined the strike to complain about delays in their judicial processes, the situation in prisons and discontent with government programs “that have not provided any solution to their legal situation,” added the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory.
The images released by the NGO show dozens of prisoners, women and men, showing banners inside the penitentiary centersdemanding immediate release for prisoners who accuse procedural delays and denouncing serious problems with food and health care.
A report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of 2023 described the situation of those deprived of liberty in Venezuela as “one of the most serious in the region”. Among the main deficiencies he mentioned the overcrowding and the lack of updated official figures in the prison system.
According to the IACHR, official figures recorded a prison population in 2022 of 33,558 prisoners in 45 prison centers. However, he assured that there is a “duality of the penitentiary system” which takes shape in preventive detention centers, which he called “dungeons”, raising the record to 35,000 inmates. She did not have access to data from 2023, she added.
Overcrowding, which can exceed 200% in some prisons in the country“can constitute in itself a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, violating the right to personal integrity and other human rights,” indicated the regional organization.
(With information from agencies)
