CARACAS – Roughly a fourth of the people detained in Venezuela during the civil unrest that followed the July presidential election have been granted prison release orders, the country’s chief prosecutor announced Monday.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said in a statement posted on Instagram that a review of cases linked to the unrest resulted in 533 release “measures sought" by his office and "agreed” upon by the judicial system. It wasn't immediately clear how many of those orders have been executed.
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President Nicolás Maduro ordered the review amid increasing pressure from the international community for the repression campaign his government unleashed after the election, including the arrests of more than 2,000 adults and minors.
Venezuela’s governing party, which controls all aspects of government, tightened the crackdown on dissent after it and the opposition both claimed to have won the July 28 vote, prompting nationwide protests. At least 24 people were killed in the demonstrations, and a human rights watchdog has implicated state security forces in some of the deaths.
The United States, European Union and even some fellow leftist governments in Latin America have demanded that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council present detailed voting records, as it has in the past, to refute tally sheets presented by Maduro’s opponents showing their candidate, Edmundo González, prevailed by a two-to-one margin.
The U.S., EU and other nations recognized González as the election winner. But the former diplomat left Venezuela for exile in Spain in September after Saab’s office issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the publishing online of the tally sheets.