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The Venezuelan government released several prominent opposition members from prison on Sunday, including one of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado’s closest allies, after lengthy politically motivated detentions.
Their release comes as the government of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez faces mounting pressure to release hundreds of people who were detained months or years ago for their political beliefs. They also monitor the visit Venezuela representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Today we are freed,” said Juan Pablo Guanipa, a Machado ally and former governor, in a video posted on X. “A lot to discuss about the present and the future of Venezuela, always with the truth in the foreground.”
Guanipa, who spent more than eight months in custody, was released from custody in the capital, Caracas. In the video he published, an armored vehicle and police officers appear behind him.
Venezuela-based prisoner rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people on Sunday.
Besides Guanipe, Machado’s political organization said several of its members were among those freed, including Maria Oropeza, who live-streamed her arrest by military intelligence officers as they broke into her home with crowbars. Machado’s lawyer, Perkins Rocha, was also acquitted.
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“Let’s go for the freedom of Venezuela!” Machado posted on X.
Guanipa was arrested in late May and accused by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello of participating in an alleged “terrorist group” that planned to boycott parliamentary elections that month. Guanipa’s brother Tomás denied the accusations and said the arrest was aimed at suppressing dissent.
“Thinking differently cannot be criminalized in Venezuela, and today Juan Pablo Guanipa is a prisoner of conscience of this regime,” Tomás Guanipa said after his arrest. “He has the right to think as he thinks, the right to defend his ideas and the right to be treated according to the constitution that is not implemented today.”
Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s acting president after the US military captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas last month.
Her government announced on January 8 that it would release a significant number of prisoners – a central demand of the country’s opposition and US-backed human rights groups – but families and human rights groups criticized the authorities for the slow pace of the releases.
The ruling party-controlled National Assembly began debating an amnesty bill this week that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners. The opposition and non-governmental organizations reacted with cautious optimism and suggestions and requests for more information about the content of the proposal.
National Assembly Speaker Jorge Rodríguez posted a video on Instagram on Friday showing him outside a detention center in Caracas and saying “everyone” will be released next week at the latest, once the amnesty bill is passed.
Delcy Rodríguez and Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke by phone in late January. His spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said in a statement that he “offered our support to help Venezuela work on a plan for dialogue and reconciliation in which human rights should be at the center” and then “deployed a team” to the South American country.
—Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
