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A Heartbreaking Update on Venezuela’s Political Prisoner Crisis – PJ Media

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January 20, 2026
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A Heartbreaking Update on Venezuela's Political Prisoner Crisis – PJ Media

It’s been 12 days since the Delcy Rodríguez regime announced that it would begin releasing a “significant amount” of political prisoners from Venezuelan prisons and torture centers, and 11 days since Donald Trump confirmed it. The regime brags that it has released well over 400 people. That is a lie. 





According to the human rights group Foro Penal, only 143 have been released since the announcement. It suggests that 777 remain in custody, including 678 men and 99 women, 604 civilians and 173 members of the military, and two adolescents.  It also suggests that 66 people’s whereabouts remain unknown.   

Here’s the organization’s graphic in English:   

To give you an idea of how well that’s going over, this video of the mother of one of the political prisoners went viral on Monday night. It’s hard to watch. 

She’s one of the many family members and friends who have been camping out in the rain for nearly two weeks, waiting for a glimpse of their loved ones. They’re harassed by police. They’re losing their patience. 

They’re also bravely gathering outside the Public Ministry, demanding to see their loved ones. “Justice, justice, justice, and freedom! Everyone is innocent! No one is a criminal!” they shout. 





Side note: In Venezuela, this is risky and a much braver move than anything anyone is doing in in Minnesota right now, yet who gets all the attention? 

Foro Penal points out that since 2014, the year after Nicolás Maduro took over for Hugo Chávez, 18,739 Venezuelans have been detained arbitrarily. Their crimes are typically something like “posted something anti-Maduro on social media,” “took part in a peaceful protests,” “told neighbors to vote against Maduro,” or “joined the opposition party.”

These people disappear, locked away in some hellhole, where they’re tortured into confessing to crimes they never committed. They lack food, health care, and basic hygiene. When their day in a kangaroo court comes, often they aren’t allowed to plead their cases and instead receive sentences of 25 to 30 years or more.  

Related: The Futuristic Shopping Mall That Became a ‘Torture Chamber’

In the wake of Maduro’s capture and arrest, their release is the top priority for many of the Venezuelan people. It’s also an important step in restoring the country to democracy. 

On Tuesday, opposition leader María Corina Machado met with Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Albert Ramdin, and the two talked about the “impact of recent events and the pathways for the country and its people to move forward toward stability, democracy, and prosperity.” 





“It is not possible to talk about transition with repression,” Machado said while speaking to the press after. “These are two absolutely opposite circumstances. So, first thing that needs to happen, the priority right now, is obviously the release of political prisoners, but real freedom.”  

She made it clear that releasing the prisoners is only the first step. She said that even those who have been released are not free. They’ve been threatened not to speak. Many Venezuelan people in general live in hiding, fearing persecution because they simply wanted to express themselves freely. There are many who live in exile, just waiting to return. “The repressive structure must be dismantled, all torture centers must be permanently closed, and those who wish to speak out today, starting with the families of political prisoners, must know that there is no risk of them becoming the new prisoners,” she said.  

Machado asked for the media to continue raising its voice. Ramdin also said after the meeting that he will “make a new call to the current authorities in Venezuela to facilitate, as soon as possible, the full release of all persons arbitrarily detained. This would represent a first step toward a transition.” Dignitaries from other countries around the world and the United Nations are also calling on the regime to pick up the pace. In the United States, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has been particularly outspoken. 





Rafael Tudares

Instead of just giving a general update, I thought I’d put a couple of faces to names. I wrote about a lawyer named Rafael Tudares last month. He remains in the notoriously harsh El Rodeo detention/torture center. Last January, he was taking his young children —I believe they were just six and seven years old — to school when men in black kidnapped him. He was detained by the regime and charged with “terrorism.” He was eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

The thing is, he’s a law-abiding citizen with no prior criminal record. He’s not even all that political, but his father-in-law is Venezuela’s real president-elect, Edmundo González. That’s why he was arrested. Being so high-profile may even be why he’s still alive — international eyes are watching. But his family didn’t know of his condition until recently. 

Tudares was incommunicado for over a year, but on January 16, his wife, Mariana González de Tudares, was allowed to see him and talk to him through bulletproof glass for 25 minutes. Mariana maintains an X account about his and other prisoners’ situations, and she wrote that his situation is dire, but at least she was able to verify that he’s alive. She had an AI artist sketch an image of what he looked like. Take a look at his before and after: 





There is no reason why the regime is still holding Rafael, aside from politics. As a matter of fact, on Monday, Mariana finally spoke up publicly about how the regime has used him as part of an “extortion scheme,” promising to free him if she convinced her father to step aside and give up his own political career. She called it “judicial kidnapping used to blackmail the president-elect.”  

Edison José Torres Fernández

At least Rafael has hope. Edison José Torres Fernández does not. He won’t be coming home because he died in custody on January 10, just two days after the regime announced that it would free the prisoners. 

He was a 52-year-old police officer who was arrested in early December for ” sharing messages critical of the regime and the state governor.” He was charged with treason and criminal association. He’d worked as an officer for 20 years and was assigned to a hospital brigade. 

He was married and had two teenage children, who were waiting for him to be released. Instead, they were told that he had died after having a “heart attack and stroke,” but many say he actually died due to neglect and mistreatment. 

Edison is not the first person to die in one of these prisons, and he won’t be the last. As a matter of fact, I just heard of another one today. There is also some speculation that more of the prisoners are already dead or in incredibly bad shape, and that’s delaying their release. Some sources have reported that some of the prisoners have been moved to new undisclosed locations, which is even more suspicious.  





That’s what makes this even harder for the loved ones camped outside the prisons. Most of them haven’t seen or talked to their brothers, husbands, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, cousins, and friends since they disappeared, so they have no idea what their current conditions are or if they’re even still alive.   


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