Venezuela | Families of imprisoned teenagers demand their release

(Caracas) “Our children are not terrorists”: the relatives of eight teenagers detained in Venezuela during the protests after the disputed re-election of President Nicolas Maduro demanded their release on Friday in front of a police barracks in Caracas.

According to human rights organizations, more than a hundred minors were arrested by the army and police during the post-election crisis. The repression of spontaneous demonstrations left 27 dead and 192 injured. Some 2,400 people were arrested, according to official sources.

Eighty-five arrested minors have been released, but around thirty are still behind bars.

“We want freedom for our children, because our children are not terrorists,” said Tania Urbina, mother of 16-year-old Miguel Alejandro Urbina.

“There is no answer as to what will happen to them. We are desperate. They [les autorités] accuse him of something false,” protests M.^me Urbina, a 32-year-old manicurist, who was able to visit her son.

Dionexis Garcia, sister of another minor under arrest, Diosmer Mejias, says her brother has a rubber bullet embedded in his back and has not received adequate medical care. “They [les autorités] They didn’t send him for tests or X-rays. They only sent us to buy injections and pills. We don’t know anything else.”

According to M^me Garcia’s brother was arrested at his home, a practice denounced by human rights activists after Mr. Maduro and senior officials called on citizens to denounce troublemakers.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner of the election, with 52% of the vote. But the opposition claims, based on the minutes provided by its scrutineers, that its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained more than 60% of the votes.

Part of the international community does not recognize Mr. Maduro’s victory.