A local newspaper revealed Saturday that socialist Venezuela is feeding political prisoners that were arrested after the nation’s sham election this summer rotten food and contaminated water, greatly endangering their health.
El Carabobeño recounted testimonies from some of the families of more than 500 detainees presently imprisoned at the Tocuyito prison — one of the inmate facilities “raided” and emptied by the socialist regime in late 2023 and the location of one of the two “reeducation camps” for dissidents that dictator Nicolás Maduro announced in August.
The families explained that they have only been able to see their relatives once since August 26, the date they were transferred to the Tocuyito prison. El Carabobeño explained that the detainees are malnourished and in psychologically vulnerable conditions due to the poor quality of the food they are served, “most of it with worms, some with hair, almost all of it decomposed.”
According to the testimonies given to El Carabobeño, the detainees are facing up to 30 years in prison for “terrorism” charges as punishment for protesting in the aftermath of the July 28 sham presidential election, which Maduro and Venezuela’s authorities — all loyal to the dictator — claim he “won” despite evidence presented by the Venezuelan opposition that suggests he lost against Edmundo González, a 75-year-old diplomat who fled to Spain in September.
El Carabobeño stated that some of the detainees are their respective families’ breadwinners and were not part of the protests, according to the testimonies, but were detained for merely “riding a motorcycle or being on the street” during the protests. None of the detainees reportedly accepted a guilty plea bargain in exchange for a “27-year sentence without benefits.”
The grandmother of one of the detainees told the newspaper that she was able to see her grandchild on September 1. After taking a photo and providing some personal information, the grandmother explained, she was searched and told to wait in a corridor accompanied by hooded guards before the visit.
The grandmother was prohibited from touching the detainees and ordered to speak with her relative face-to-face at a table, hands on their legs, under the tables, “without moving them, just like theirs.”
“Imagine after all this time, not being able to hug my grandson,” the grandmother said, adding that she was instructed that any violation would lead to a sanction for the detainee and the suspension of visitation rights.
“He was going to cry and I told him please don’t cry so I wouldn’t cry and I could talk to him,” she continued, pointing out that her grandchild told her that he does not eat “because that’s food with worms. That’s ground skin with worms, it raises my blood pressure.”
The grandmother asserted that her grandchild, who suffers from stomach-related woes, experiences stomach pain from drinking the dubious water from the prison’s tank.
“They don’t give him any medicine and they don’t ask me for it either. If I go to that door and send him some omeprazole, they don’t give it to him because the doctor inside has to order that,” she said.
The mother of another detainee denounced that her son is being fed arepas with worm-infested cheese and demanded to be allowed to see her son and provide food for him, stressing that other young people have fainted or suffered convulsions from the malnourishment. The mother pointed out that her son’s hearing is scheduled for October 18, but she does not know if he is being forced to plead guilty.
The wife of another detainee denounced that cockroach legs were found on her husband’s meal.
“Some days they only give them food once. There was one day they didn’t eat because it was so bad they had to throw it away. The water is so dirty that it makes them sick,” she said.
The relatives of the detainees also denounced that there are men suffering from different conditions in Tocuyito, such as one individual with AIDS, one with a colostomy, and another with heart problems, all of whom denounced being malnourished because of the little yet rotten food they receive. The detainees reportedly do not always receive medical attention despite the presence of medical personnel in the prison.
The lack of access to visits has prompted the families of the detainees to camp outside the prison and use binoculars to see them from a distance. The relatives said local police stole their binoculars, alleging that they were “espionage items.”
The relatives denounced that the detainees are punished if caught waving back at their families. According to El Carabobeño, the next court hearings for the detainees are slated for October 16 through 18, yet the detainees do not even know the name of the judges that will handle the cases.
On Friday, El Carabobeño denounced that some of the detainees are being forced through threats and physical abuse to declare themselves guilty by signing a piece of paper and stamping their fingerprints on it. Reports published by the newspaper at the start of October indicated that the Maduro regime is also putting minors on trial for “terrorism” charges. The minors have been subject to torture and not given the right to due defense.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.