Jan 14 (Reuters) – Venezuelan journalist union SNTP said on Wednesday that politician and journalist Roland Carreno has been freed in an ongoing prisoner release, as families continue to anxiously await an unknown number of releases promised by the government and hailed by the United States.
The releases, announced last week, are moving slowly, according to advocacy groups and families. Human rights organizations count some 800 political prisoners currently in the country, but so far just dozens have been freed.
Some of those released so far are Americans, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, without confirming how many were released nor their identities.
The release of political prisoners in the South American country is a long-running demand of rights groups, international bodies and opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has several close allies imprisoned.
Both Venezuela’s top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, the brother of acting President Delcy Rodriguez, and U.S. President Donald Trump have said the releases are a gesture of peace. Trump said he has canceled a second wave of attacks on Venezuela following cooperation from the South American nation.
For years, Venezuela’s opposition and human rights groups have said the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent, a charge authorities have consistently denied. There is no official list of exactly how many prisoners will be released nor who they are.
The releases come after the U.S. capture of President Nicolas Maduro, his arraignment in a New York court on narcoterrorism charges, swearing-in of interim President Delcy Rodriguez and announcement that the U.S. would refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of crude oil stuck in Venezuela under U.S. sanctions.
Carreno is a former operations director for opposition party Voluntad Popular who was detained in October 2020, released in 2023 and then arrested again in 2024.
The families of both prominent and little-known detainees have anxiously awaited news, with many gathering outside prisons or visiting multiple detention centers in an attempt to discover where loved ones are held.
Among prominent detained figures are opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa and lawyer Perkins Rocha, both close allies of Machado, Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of the opposition’s former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, opposition Voluntad Popular party leader Freddy Superlano and Javier Tarazona, director of an NGO which tracks alleged abuses by Colombian armed groups and the Venezuelan military.
(Reporting by Reuters)
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