Venezuela grants ‘freedom’ to Ceballos, 38 others

Bloomberg

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro granted conditional freedom to at least 39 political prisoners, including former opposition Mayor Daniel Ceballos, imprisoned since 2014 for allegedly encouraging violent protests in his home state.
The political prisoners slated for release include some arrested during anti-government rallies over the past three years amid pitched confrontations
with state security forces and Maduro’s militant supporters. Others are tied to an attack against lawmaker Teodoro Campos while he toured downtown Caracas with former presidential candidate Henri Falcon, according to a list of names shared by Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno.
“In the next hours we will continue working on measures of this kind relating to other people,” Constituent Assembly President Delcy Rodriguez said in a televised address before an audience in Caracas that featured political prisoners set to be freed. “This is the first step toward what Venezuela should be, as we move away from hate and intolerance.”
The announcement follows Maduro’s internationally condemned re-election May 20, and as the government tries to stave off sanctions that have cut into the nation’s financial lifeline and targeted the regime’s top leaders.
Maduro, speaking after the prisoners’ release, said he wants to expand his policy of “pacification” as part of a process of national reconciliation and dialogue.
“Let those being released with this measure go free as a sign of our good will,” Maduro said at a meeting with supporters at the presidential palace broadcast on state television. “But anyone who is conspiring will receive his punishment.”
In the past two weeks, Maduro has met with a Vatican envoy, a US senator and key members of the country’s opposition, who’ve long made the release of political prisoners a central demand in previous but ultimately failed talks with the government.
Maduro last month seemed to broach the subject of a possible release, and Venezuela’s Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez appeared to echo that shift — after the president met with four opposition governors — by saying the government wants to “turn the page on political violence.”
That may be easier said than done for the families of more than 368 political prisoners currently detained in Venezuela, according to the human rights organisation Foro Penal, or Penal Forum.