Name: What’s next for Venezuela’s political prisoners?
Uploaded: 2026-01-09T19:16:05.144Z
Duration: 5 min 2 s
Description: The U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro unlocked new hope for the hundreds of political dissidents lost in Venezuela’s notorious prisons. For The National, CBC’s Evan Dyer speaks to Venezuelans now living in Canada who say they want to see the Trump administration do more to free their family and friends.

The U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro unlocked new hope for the hundreds of political dissidents lost in Venezuela’s notorious prisons. For The National, CBC’s Evan Dyer speaks to Venezuelans now living in Canada who say they want to see the Trump administration do more to free their family and friends.

Caracas

Following the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, families of political prisoners continue to wait for the release of their loved ones, despite initial gestures from the new leadership. Many detainees, including high-profile opposition figures, remain held in harsh conditions, and relatives report ongoing distress and lack of communication.

While the Venezuelan regime has announced intentions to release some prisoners, details remain unclear and the arrests continue. U.S. officials, who once condemned these detentions, have shifted focus to other priorities, leading to growing skepticism among Venezuelans about the commitment of international actors to human rights and justice in the country.

What’s next for Venezuela’s political prisoners?

Family members are waiting outside of Venezuela's most notorious prisons after what appeared to be a spontaneous gesture by the new leadership to release political prisoners. But so far, most have waited in vain. Hundreds remain lost in the hemisphere's most extensive gulag. Eight years ago, the Garcia Palomo family faced the full force of the Venezuelan police state in their home in Caracas. The three of us were all in the same torture center, says Sorbay Padilla, with her son Osvaldo and daughter-in-law Diana. The family's father, a colonel in Venezuela's National Guard, was accused of conspiring against the Maduro regime. He remains one of hundreds detained by the regime, despite Nicolas Maduro's ouster. Fifty men came into our house, all black, heavily armed. Some of them were wearing this mask with the symbol of a skull. The men were from the DGCIM, the most feared of Venezuela's secret police. It was the beginning of days of beatings, electric shocks and threats of rape against Diana and the other women. We're going to go one by one against her. We're going to do the same to your mother, to your two cousins. We're going to find your sister and we're going to kill her in front of your father. Locked in a tiny closet in the torture house, Osvaldo knew his girlfriend Diana, now his wife, had breathing difficulties, and says he could hear her being tortured through the wall with a bag over her head. I could hear how she was trying to catch the air because she couldn't breathe. And I knew that was real because she was having this issue at that moment. And I was like, man, they're going to let her die, so. Today most of the García Palomo family lives in Montreal, but their father, Osvaldo Sr., remains in Venezuela, facing a 30-year sentence in the notorious Rodeo Uno prison. It's been two years since the family has been able to speak to him. Letters go unanswered. We still feel we're being tortured, says Sorbay, as long as he's not here and we don't know what's happening to him. We grew up together. In Calgary, Luz Urdanete is thinking of her childhood friend, Juan Pablo Guanipa. He comes from a big family, so he had his own big family as well. A prominent ally of opposition leader María Corina Machado, Guanipa was seized last year and is presumed to be in the Helicoid, a notorious shopping centre turned detention centre in the heart of Caracas. He has high blood pressure. He has diabetes. We haven't seen him. We have no contact with him. Guanipa was widowed shortly before his imprisonment. So imagine no mom, no dad. So it's just hard to believe that somebody so hardworking and so dedicated to the country, the well-being of the country, is a prisoner. Guanipa's arrest was condemned at the time by Marco Rubio, who called it unjustified and arbitrary and demanded his release. But since capturing Nicolás Maduro, Rubio and other U.S. officials have shown no interest in demanding the immediate release of the hundreds of political prisoners suffering in Venezuela's prisons. We obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now. It's not because the Trump administration has no ability to order their release. Their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America. Rather, it just doesn't appear to be a priority. Are you going to demand that Delsi Rodríguez let opposition figures return or free any political prisoners? We haven't gotten to that yet. Right now, what we want to do is fix up the oil. On Thursday, the regime said it would release some prisoners as a goodwill gesture, but didn't say when or who. What are we waiting for? Why do we keep those people suffering for no reason? This should be like phase one, and you can do this without waiting for other things to happen. This is just opening the door. Meanwhile, Venezuela's socialist regime continues to arrest more people, and the Trump administration hasn't told it to stop those arrests or halt the torture. We don't have Maduro, but we have the same things happening, the same people that have torture and murder in power. So what is the change there? Just a different name in president? No. We need action. Many Venezuelans, including the ones we spoke to for this story, welcomed the capture of Nicolás Maduro as an act of justice. The Trump administration's decisions to collaborate with the existing dictatorship, to exclude and even denigrate the Venezuelan opposition, and above all, to leave political prisoners languishing in prison, are beginning to raise doubts about American intentions among some Venezuelans who strongly supported the U.S. intervention.

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