The Venezuelan National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors.
However, the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country — which could include opposition leaders such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention such as the one that ousted former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
The bill was signed by Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who pushed for the legislation under pressure from Washington, after she rose to power following Maduro’s capture during a US military raid on Jan. 3.
Photo: EPA
“One must know how to ask for forgiveness and one must also know how to receive forgiveness,” Rodriguez said after signing the bill into law.
In one of the first releases after the bill passed, Machado ally and former National Assembly vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa announced his release from detention after about nine months in prison and under house arrest.
“After 10 months in hiding and almost nine months of unjust imprisonment, I confirm that I am now completely free,” Guanipa wrote on social media.
He called for all other political prisoners to be freed and exiles allowed to return, criticizing the law as not an amnesty, but a “flawed document” that excludes some Venezuelans who remain behind bars.
“I thank all Venezuelans for fighting for my release and that of all political prisoners,” he wrote.
The law is meant to apply retroactively to 1999 — including the coup against former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the 2002 oil strike and the 2024 riots against Maduro’s disputed re-election — giving hope to families that loved ones would finally come home.
However, some fear the law could be used by the government to pardon its own and selectively deny freedom to real prisoners of conscience.
Article 9 of the bill lists those excluded from amnesty as “persons who are being prosecuted or may be convicted for promoting, instigating, soliciting, invoking, favoring, facilitating, financing or participating in armed actions, or the use of force against the people, sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Venezuela “by foreign states, corporations or individuals.”
The Venezuelan National Assembly had delayed several sittings meant to pass the amnesty bill.
“The scope of the law must be restricted to victims of human rights violations and expressly exclude those accused of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including state, paramilitary and non-state actors,” UN human rights experts said in a statement.
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