Why Venezuela moves towards freeing political prisoners
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Keith Adams, and in the early hours of Friday the 6th of February, these are our main stories. Lawmakers in Venezuela advance an amnesty bill for hundreds of political prisoners, a central demand by opposition figures and the United States. Scandal in Norway after several high society figures are found in the Epstein files.
What progress has Venezuela made towards freeing political prisoners?
A former prime minister is now being investigated by the police. And have scientists in China found a less invasive way to test for cervical cancer? Also in this podcast... More material, you know, a greater surface area in the suit, it can quite dramatically affect how far a ski jumper can fly. Controversy at the Winter Olympics, the strange way some ski jumpers might be cheating. We start this podcast in Venezuela...
Justice! Justice! Justice and freedom!
Everyone is innocent!
Those chants come from outside Venezuela's Supreme Court in Caracas, where families of political prisoners were calling for their release on Thursday evening. Earlier, lawmakers unanimously backed a bill introduced by the country's interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, marking a first step towards freeing hundreds of opposition figures, journalists and human rights activists. Among those watching was Manuel Labrador, whose father, a former regional lawmaker, has been in prison since 2024. This gives us a lot of hope amid the uncertainty. It has given us more hope and strength to continue with this struggle that we all share. There are people here whose relatives have been unjustly imprisoned for years, and today we want everyone to be free, not just a few, but all of us, with our relatives back on the streets.
Well, BBC Monitoring's Latin America analyst Luis Fajardo has been following developments from Miami.
As you mentioned, it is a first step and an important first step, it would seem like, towards meeting one of the main demands of the Venezuelan opposition. Of course, they have been denouncing for many years that there are hundreds of political prisoners still being held in Venezuelan jails. And this certainly seems to be a first move in that direction. Of course, there is a process that would still need to happen for this bill to become a law. There's a period of public consultation and another reading by the national legislature. So there's still some steps that would need to occur before this actually becomes a law. But it's certainly a move that has been applauded, has been welcomed by many people in Venezuela who have been demanding that the U.S.
intervention should start to result in real political changes in Venezuela.
And it is a move that aligns with the US demands, I suppose.
Certainly, the US government has been saying that one of their big demands is precisely this, that prisoners are released. And it's also going to help the US government deflect criticism of those, of some commentators who have said that the situation after the US military intervention had not changed that dramatically in many senses. The fact that the Chavista apparatus, the Chavista government was still very much in charge and still continuing with practices that had been condemned, but of course internally and in the international community as well. So it is going to be an argument used by the US government as well to suggest that things are indeed changing, maybe slowly, but they seem to be changing to some degree in Venezuela.
But isn't the judiciary in Venezuela still loyal to Nicolas Maduro?
That is a crucial question, not only about the judiciary, but about all institutions in Venezuela. There seems to be, in some cases, an apparent duality in cases where the government seems to be obeying U.S. demands and some cases in which it still operates the way it has been operating before. So it is still unclear how much autonomy this government still has and how much it is only following U.S. orders.
Luis Fajardo.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:21
2
What progress has Venezuela made towards freeing political prisoners?
1:21–8:52
3
What scandal is currently unfolding in Norway regarding Jeffrey Epstein?
8:52–9:45
4
How are scientists in China innovating cervical cancer tests?
9:45–27:55
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Global News Podcast
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