Venezuela's Opposition Says Only 33 Prisoners Freed Since August, Demands Mass Releases
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Venezuela's Unitary Democratic Platform, the country's largest opposition coalition, said on September 26 that it had verified only 33 new releases of political prisoners since its previous update on August 21, and demanded mass, permanent, speedy, public and transparent release processes to free all of them. The count followed overnight releases from several detention centers on September 25, which the rights group Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón put at 29 verified cases, 17 of them not on its political-prisoner registry. Foro Penal, which counted 344 political prisoners beforehand, said it knew of a little over 20. The releases followed the close of the second round of government-opposition dialogue.