Freed activists include former mayor, opposition adviser and police, while President Maduro denies they are ‘political prisoners’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Three dozen opponents of Venezuela’s socialist government have been freed from prison and reunited with their families as part of a wider Christmas prisoner release, a local rights group said.

Following condemnation by critics at home and abroad for holding about 270 activists in prison, President Nicolás Maduro’s administration said on Saturday it was freeing 80 of them, replacing jail terms with alternative sentences such as community service.

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Thirteen were paraded in front of TV cameras at a meeting with a senior official, Delcy Rodriguez. She harangued them for violence and subversion, but also wished them a happy Christmas.

Alfredo Romero, whose Penal Forum group tracks the detention of activists and protesters, said 36 “political prisoners” had been freed by Sunday morning. But he criticised the government for not giving a blanket amnesty.

“They should release not just some but all of them, and not imprison any more,” he said.

The best-known among the released prisoners were former provincial mayor Alfredo Ramos, opposition electoral adviser Roberto Picón and a dozen police officers who worked for the opposition-run Chacao district of Caracas.

“I’m happy to be free – I’m with my family,” Ramos was quoted as saying in local media. “It was a tough ordeal, very difficult. It was an arbitrary detention, unjust. I didn’t commit any crime.”

Maduro, the 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, rejects the term “political prisoners”, saying all of the jailed activists were there on legitimate charges of plotting to overthrow his government and promoting violence.

About 170 people died during two rounds of anti-Maduro street protests in 2014 and earlier this year.

Opponents say they are fighting for freedom against a “dictatorship” that has destroyed the Opec nation’s economy and democracy. Maduro accuses them of being part of a global right-wing plot to topple him in a coup.

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US congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fierce critic of the Venezuelan government, called the pre-Christmas releases a hypocritical gesture.

“Maduro in Venezuela cynically ‘releases’ 80 political prisoners who were actually innocent, parades and humiliates several on state TV … and expects thanks for Christmas ‘mercy’,” tweeted the Republican representative from Florida. “What a cruel farce.”

Nevertheless, the releases could inject life into the stuttering mediation talks between Venezuela’s government and opposition, which are due to resume in the Dominican Republic in early January.

The releases “concretely demonstrate the revolution and President Nicolás Maduro’s firm desire for dialogue,” said the foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza. “Let’s hope the opposition knows how to interpret this and isolate its violent factors.”

Venezuela’s best-known detained politician is Leopoldo López, who remains under house arrest in Caracas, accused of leading violence in 2014.

“Though they have turned his house into a jail, I know his mind is strong and he will keep fighting tirelessly for a better Venezuela,” said his mother, Antonieta López, lamenting the fact he was spending a fourth Christmas in detention.