Venezuela’s Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) demanded this Saturday the release of the opposition leader Roland Carreño, who it claims was detained by “intelligence bodies of Nicolás Maduro’s regime” last August during the wave of post electoral protests.
Through X, the PUD demanded that the collaborator of the Voluntad Popular (VP) party be immediately released, as well as all political prisoners, estimated at 164 by the Vente Venezuela party – founded by opposition leader María Corina Machado – among which are national leaders and people who held elected positions when they were arrested.
“Wanting a change for Venezuela is not a crime. Doing politics is not a crime,” said the PUD.
This is the second time that Carreño has been illegally detained. He was also arrested on October 26th, 2020, when he was accused of financing terrorism, conspiracy against the political form and illicit trafficking of weapons of war, and released on October 18th of last year after an agreement signed then between Chavismo and the PUD in Barbados.
The new arrest occurred after the presidential elections on July 28th, when the authorities arrested more than 2,400 people, according to Chavismo, some of them in protests against the official result – which gave Maduro the reelection – and others in police and military operations ordered by the regime, which denounced a coup against it.
On Saturday, relatives of detainees in Venezuela concluded a prayer vigil that began the day before near the Tocuyito prison, in the state of Carabobo (center north), to ask for the freedom of all those considered political prisoners, according to the NGO Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners.
With information from EFE