Venezuela yesterday hit its 100th day of anti-government protests, one day after its most prominent political prisoner, Leopoldo Lopez, vowed to continue his fight for freedom after being released from jail and placed under house arrest.
Lopez’s surprise release triggered speculation over the prospect of negotiations between the opposition and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s embattled leftist government, with a rising toll of death and destruction from three months of non-stop street protests.
Lopez, leader of the Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party and a symbol of resistance to the Maduro government, emerged hours after his release from prison looking fit and happy.
Photo: AP
He pumped his fist in the air, unfurled the national flag and told a crowd of supporters who had gathered outside: “Yes we can!”
“I reiterate my commitment to fight until conquering Venezuela’s freedom,” Lopez said in a statement read by a leader of his party.
Maduro in televised remarks later that day called for a message of “peace and rectification” from Lopez, adding that he hoped the statement could provide the basis for reconciliation.
Lopez was held for more than three and a half years in a military prison outside Caracas for allegedly “inciting violence” by calling for anti-government protests.
His release has been a key demand of Venezuela’s opposition and the international community amid an intensifying political confrontation.
Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz accused the government of using Lopez to “improve its image.”
“People deprived of liberty cannot be used as if they were hostages that can be objects of negotiation,” she told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court said it had ordered Lopez’s move to house arrest for health reasons, calling it a “humanitarian measure.”
The former mayor of a Caracas municipality, Lopez was an early champion of street protests to force political change in Venezuela.
The government blamed Lopez for a months-long outbreak of anti-government protests in 2014 that left 43 people dead in clashes with security forces.
He was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison on charges that his defense said were based on “manipulated” evidence.
Two other prominent opposition leaders jailed by the government on similar charges have since been moved to house arrest — former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma and former San Cristobal mayor Daniel Ceballos.
The Venezuelan Public Ministry requested in a communique the “revision” of deprivation of freedom measures against opposition leaders, including Ledezma.
Non-governmental organization Foro Penal puts the number of political prisoners in Venezuela at 433. The government insists they are in jail for acts of violence.
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