CARACAS, Venezuela\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa, one of the closest allies of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, was released Sunday after more than eight months in prison on what are widely considered to be politically motivated accusations.<\/p>\n
Guanipa had been held at a detention facility in the capital, Caracas. His release comes as the government of acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez faces mounting pressure to free hundreds of people whose detentions months or years ago have been linked to their political beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we are being released,\u201d Guanipa said in a video posted on X showing him standing with an armored vehicle and officers behind him. \u201cMuch to discuss about the present and future of Venezuela, always with the truth at the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuelan-based prisoners\u2019 rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 18 people Sunday.<\/p>\n
In addition to Guanipa, Machado\u2019s political organization said that some of its local political organizers as well as her attorney, Perkins Rocha, were among those freed.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go for the freedom of Venezuela!\u201d she posted on X.<\/p>\n
Guanipa was detained in late May and accused by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello of involvement in a \u201cterrorist group\u201d plotting to boycott that month\u2019s legislative election. Guanipa\u2019s brother Tom\u00e1s rejected the accusation and said the arrest was meant to crack down on dissent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking differently cannot be criminalized in Venezuela, and today, Juan Pablo Guanipa is a prisoner of conscience of this regime,\u201d Tom\u00e1s Guanipa said after the arrest. \u201cHe has the right to think as he thinks, the right to defend his ideas, and the right to be treated under a constitution that is not being enforced today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez was sworn in as Venezuela\u2019s acting president after the U.S. military invasion and capture of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro last month. <\/p>\n
Her government announced it would free a significant number of prisoners \u2014 a central demand of the country\u2019s opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States \u2014 but families and rights watchdogs have criticized authorities for the slow pace of the releases.<\/p>\n
The ruling party-controlled National Assembly last week began debating an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners. The opposition and nongovernmental organizations have reacted with cautious optimism and with suggestions and demands for more information on the contents of the proposal.<\/p>\n
National Assembly President Jorge Rodr\u00edguez on Friday posted a video on Instagram showing him outside a detention center in Caracas and saying that \u201ceveryone\u201d would be released in the coming week, once the amnesty bill was approved. <\/p>\n
Cano writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARACAS, Venezuela\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa, one of the closest allies of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mar\u00eda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[81399,61898,81398,81396,4915,48,52,51,47,50,49,3906,9300,592,2901,5274,15157,2335,9298,81397,5050],"class_list":["post-169686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-amnesty-bill","tag-caracas","tag-central-demand","tag-guanipa","tag-hundred","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-month","tag-opposition","tag-people","tag-prison","tag-release","tag-right","tag-today","tag-venezuela","tag-venezuelan-based-prisoner","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}