Inmates alleging torture take over Venezuelan prison
Hundreds of inmates took control of a prison in western Venezuela on Sunday, claiming they were tortured and demanding its director be fired. Large columns of smoke from burning mattresses and sheets rose from the prison in the city of Barinas as inmates gathered on the roof, chanting, "No more torture! No more torture!" an AFP reporter observed. They hung banners with messages like "SOS" and "They are torturing us."
Officers armed with shields surrounded the Barinas Judicial Detention Center, located about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Caracas. Dozens of family members waited anxiously nearby. Yelitza Arrollo told AFP that she has not heard from her son, an inmate at the detention center, since May 8. "They are suffering because they are beating them terribly, torturing them, pouring cold water on them, electrocuting them, setting them on fire, mistreating them terribly," she said outside the prison. "We want the director removed."
Relatives said several of the inmates were injured. Some "1,200 men and more than 100 women incarcerated at the Barinas Judicial Detention Center have gone on strike," the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a humanitarian group also known by its acronym OVP, said in a social media post. The government ministry that runs the prisons "is ignoring the inmates, who have been denouncing mistreatment for over a week. They are not being listened to; on the contrary, they are being shot at and tear-gassed," OVP said.
For years, activists have criticized overcrowding, limited food and a lack of medical care in Venezuelan prisons, alongside what they claim are systematic human rights violations. In April, the government confirmed the deaths of five people during a riot at the high-security Yare III prison, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) from Caracas. In 2023, then-president Nicolas Maduro ordered a military operation to intervene in the country's major prisons, which had been controlled by gangs for years. In January, Maduro was dramatically ousted in a lightning US operation that took him and his wife to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
