Jailed opposition activist describes brutality of prison life

“They have already tortured me and oppressed me, but they will not silence me. My voice is what I have left.”

This is how Juan, a young man of about 20, begins his story. He is said to have been physically and mentally abused by the Venezuelan military after his arrest in connection with the July 28 presidential election.

He was one of hundreds of people arrested during protests after election officials – led by government loyalists – declared the dictator, Nicolás Maduro, victorious.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) did not make the vote public and Venezuelan opposition has described the results as fraudulent, saying that the votes obtained with the help of election observers showed a landslide victory for their candidate, Edmundo González.

Juan was released from prison in mid-November, days after Maduro called on law enforcement officials to “correct” any injustices in his detention.

The BBC spoke to him via video. For his safety, we have decided to leave out some of his story and have changed his name.

The young man says that most of the detainees are tortured, given “rotten food” and that the rebels are kept in “torture cells”.

He showed the BBC documents and evidence to support his story, which is consistent with other evidence and complaints from non-governmental organizations.

Juan, an anti-government political activist, says the election campaign and the days leading up to the election were “hopeful” and many people were eager to vote for change.

But the announcement of Maduro’s victory shortly after midnight on Sunday turned what had been joy for many into confusion and anger.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest what they called a fraudulent result.

Protesters and international organizations say what followed was a police crackdown that killed more than 20 protesters.

Maduro and some of his officials blamed the opposition, “far-right” groups and “terrorists” for the death.

Gonzalo Himiob of the Venezuelan non-governmental organization Foro Penal said people were arrested for “celebrating the announcement by the opposition that Edmundo González was the winner, or for writing something about it on social media”.

“We also have cases of people who did not protest, but for some reason approached the protest and were arrested,” he added.

Juan says that’s what happened to him.

A young political activist said he was doing other things when a group of hooded men grabbed him, covered his face and beat him, accusing him of being a terrorist.

“They planted cocktails and Molotov cocktails on me, then they took me to a public park,” he said.

He was held in a prison in central Venezuela for several weeks until he was transferred to Tocorón, a notorious maximum-security prison about 140 kilometers southwest of the capital, Caracas.

There he goes through what he describes as the most difficult time of his life.

“When we arrived in Tocorón, they stripped us, beat us, and insulted us. We were forbidden to raise our heads and look at the guards; we had to lower our heads to the ground,” says Juan.

Juan was given a small room three meters long and three meters long, which he had to share with five other people.

There were six beds arranged in three beds, and in one corner was a septic tank and “a pipe that was like a shower”. That was the bathroom.

“In Tocorón I felt more like I was in a torture prison than a prison,” says the boy. He describes the beds as “concrete tombs” with very thin mattresses.

“They tortured us physically and mentally. They didn’t let us sleep, they always came to ask us to get up and line up,” he explains.

“They would wake us up around 05:00 to line up behind the cell. The guards would ask us to show our ID cards and numbers.”

He added that at 06:00 he turns on the water for six minutes to bathe.

“Six minutes for six people and only one shower, with very cold water. If you were the last one and you didn’t have time to remove the soap, you were left with soap all day,” he said. He says.

Then he added that he was waiting for breakfast, which sometimes arrived at 06:00 and sometimes at 12:00.

Dinner was sometimes 21:00, and sometimes 02:00.

“Apart from waiting for food, there was nothing else to do, we just walked around the small room and talked, we also talked about politics but in a low voice because the guards would punish us when they heard us. “

Juan said that many of his fellow inmates were depressed and acting like zombies.

“They gave us rotten food – scraps of meat like you would give to chickens or dogs or sardines that were already dead.”

Some detainees were routinely beaten or “walked like frogs” with their hands on their ankles.

He describes the “punishment cells” where people who are considered rebellious will be sent, or who dare to talk about politics or ask to call relatives.

Juan said that he was in one of the punishment cells in Tocorón, and only received one meal every two days.

“It’s a very dark cell, one meter by one meter. I’m very hungry. That made me keep thinking about all the unjust things that were happening and that one day I will get out of it,” he says.

One of the torture cells is known as “Adolfo’s bed”, Juan says, after the first person to die there.

“It’s a dark, oxygen-free room of that size. They put you in there for a few minutes until you can’t breathe and you pass out or start banging on the door because of despair. They put me in there and I stayed there. For more than five minutes I thought I was going to die,” he recalls.

The young man says that in this prison, inmates have 10 minutes of exercise outside three times a week, but most of them are confined to their cells.

Gonzalo Himiob of Foro Penal describes the situation in Tocorón as “deplorable” and says that the rights of detainees, such as access to a lawyer of their choice, are being violated.

“They all have public defenders – the government knows that if it allows access to a private attorney who is not a government employee, they can document all the violations that are going on.”

In October, United Nations (UN) experts reported serious human rights violations in the run-up to the presidential election and in the protests that followed, including political harassment, excessive use of force, lack of force and indiscriminate killings by government security forces and civil society groups. common common.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating the Venezuelan government for possible crimes against humanity.

The Venezuelan government denies the accusations and says that the investigation “is in line with the goal of supporting the international process of political justice”.

The BBC requested an interview with the Public Prosecutor’s Office on allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Juan was released in November, but according to Foro Penal statistics, there were 1,794 political prisoners in Venezuela as of December 30.

According to Juan, most of those arrested in Tocorón have placed their hopes on one day: the inauguration of the President on January 10, 2025.

It is the day that opposition leader Edmundo González, who lives in Spain, has announced that he will return to Venezuela and assume the role of President.

He said that what he said to the president is based on the results that the opposition parties managed to collect with the help of the election officials.

These ratings, which are 85% of the total, were downloaded from the website and reviewed by independent observers who are said to indicate a great success for González.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden met with González and called him the “real winner” of the Venezuelan elections.

However, it is not clear whether González, for whom authorities issued an arrest warrant, plans to enter Venezuela or who will swear that the Parliament is controlled by Maduro loyalists.

However, Juan says that the prisoners in Tocorón are hopelessly hoping that Friday will see a change of government and be released from prison.

Meanwhile, Maduro’s government has called any talk of political change a “conspiracy” and has threatened that anyone who supports the leader’s change will “pay”.

Juan admits that he feels guilty for being free while hundreds of his “friends are suffering” in prison.

But he says he is determined to return to the streets to show his support for Edmundo González on January 10.

“I am no longer afraid of the Venezuelan government,” he explains.

“They have already accused me of the worst crime, like terrorism, even though I am a young man who has done nothing but love his country and help those around him.”

“I’m not afraid,” Juan repeats, before admitting that he has left some written evidence in a safe place “in case something happens to me”.

Photos by Daniel Arce-Lopez.