CARACAS — Venezuela’s interim government released dozens of political prisoners between Friday and Saturday, the latest and one of the largest batches freed since the January capture of Nicolás Maduro reshaped the country’s political landscape.
Human rights groups tracking the releases put the number at 39 as of this writing, including eight women who had been accused of “narco-terrorism” in 2021 and six people accused of collaborating with the United States in an alleged 2020 coup attempt.
The releases are being carried out by the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, who has remained in power since his removal and has framed the process as part of a broader “national reconciliation” effort.
Rodríguez met with President Trump on September 23 at the U.N. General Assembly, where she said Venezuela had “begun a process of democratic transformation.” Her administration has not acknowledged jailing dissidents for political reasons, instead describing the releases in the language of reconciliation rather than admission.
Operationally, the releases stem from a second round of negotiations between the government and the opposition that concluded Friday, September 25, with Washington’s backing.
The government’s delegation is led by National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez; the opposition side is headed by negotiator Dinorah Figuera.
One concrete outcome was the creation of a seven-member committee to review how Venezuela’s Supreme Court justices are selected — a structural issue the opposition has flagged as central to preventing future political imprisonment.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the releases “a crucial step” toward reconciliation. Rodríguez had already enacted an amnesty law in February under U.S. pressure, and a first round of talks earlier this year focused on recovering frozen Venezuelan state funds and on judiciary reform — the same institutional question now back on the table in the newly formed committee.
The Impetus
The releases trace directly back to the U.S. military operation that removed Maduro from power in January, which opened a still-unsettled transition period in Caracas. Since then, human rights monitors estimate more than 1,000 people have been released, even as watchdog groups say hundreds remain in custody — estimates of the current number of political prisoners range from roughly 344 to 450, depending on the count used.
The pace of releases has tracked closely with the pace of U.S.-Venezuela diplomatic engagement, including Trump’s direct meeting with Rodríguez, suggesting Washington retains real leverage over the interim government’s decisions.
What the Opposition Is Saying
The opposition’s response has been notably measured rather than celebratory. Dinorah Figuera told relatives of detained prisoners on September 19 — before this latest batch was freed — that “we have come to a table where the issue of political prisoners is not included” in the primary negotiating agenda, while committing to raise detainee cases in future rounds.
Human rights groups working alongside opposition negotiators have been more pointed. Foro Penal, a Caracas-based political-prisoners advocacy group, which met with Figuera’s team, said the partial releases “do not solve the structural problem” of arbitrary detention in Venezuela. The organization’s director, Alfredo Romero, said that “without an urgent and complete reconstruction of the justice system, it will be impossible to guarantee freedoms” — a direct challenge to the idea that piecemeal releases amount to real reform.
Separately, the rights group JEP said it “will remain vigilant and continue to demand full freedom for all those who are still waiting.”
Notably absent from the talks is María Corina Machado, the opposition’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, who fled Venezuela last year and reportedly still faces arrest threats should she return — an indication that even as the interim government releases individual prisoners, it has not extended the same opening to the opposition's most prominent figure.
The releases leave open the central question shadowing Venezuela’s transition: whether these are genuine institutional reforms or a managed, incremental process calibrated to sustain U.S. engagement without ceding structural control over a judiciary rights groups call the root cause of arbitrary detention.
The new committee reviewing Supreme Court selection may be the clearest test of that question in the rounds ahead.
