Clashes as Venezuelan prisoners protest over alleged mistreatment

The director of a prison in the Venezuelan state of Barinas has been sacked after violent clashes between security forces and inmates protesting over their alleged mistreatment.

Elvis Macuare Guerrero, who had been in charge of the penitentiary for just a week, was dismissed on Monday, state officials said.

Prisoners had accused him of stopping family visits and punishing them by keeping them in solitary confinement. Macuare has not publicly commented.

Organisations lobbying for prisoners’ rights have long denounced the poor conditions at many of Venezuela’s penitentiaries.

The prosecutor’s office has announced an investigation after prisoners at the jail in Barinas, which is known as Injuba, alleged that the director had ordered violent searches of their cells and kept them in solitary confinement.

They also said they had been subjected to beatings and “torture”.

The inmates said that their complaints had gone unheard for a week, triggering a protest which saw them climb the prison roof and burn mattresses and bed sheets.

Extra security forces were deployed on Sunday. Witnesses reported hearing explosions and what they said sounded like shots being fired.

In footage published by non-governmental organisation Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP), a man can be seen showing wounds on his torso and his arm, with another man shouting “they’re shooting at us”.

Others can be heard joining into chants of “we want justice”.

On Monday, small groups of inmates remained on the roof, even after the prison director’s sacking had been announced.

Meanwhile, more than 100 prisoners were moved by bus to other penitentiaries.

Rights group OVP said that relatives of the inmates had not been given any information about the possible transfers of their loved ones and were growing increasingly anxious.

OVP has long drawn attention to the poor conditions in Venezuelan jails, with the organisation warning that many do not meet the “minimum standards” which should be guaranteed by law.

Since the United States seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a military operation in the capital, Caracas, on 3 January, US pressure has led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners.

However, more than 400 are still behind bars, according to pressure group Foro Penal.

While Injuba is not one of the prisons where most political prisoners are usually kept, Venezuela’s Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners expressed its solidarity with the inmates there, alleging that “punishment, hunger, solitary confinement, torture and inhumane conditions” were being used to control and subdue prisoners and “formed part of prison policy”.

In March, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said that his office had been receiving reports alleging that detainees had continued to be tortured in Venezuela following Maduro’s ouster by the US.

UN receives reports alleging torture of detainees in Venezuela continues

Rights groups critical as Venezuela prisoner release scheme ‘coming to an end’

Dirty laundry and chocolate bars: How Venezuelan prisoners smuggled messages out of jail