(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Three dozen opponents of Venezuela's socialist government were released from prison and reunited with loved ones yesterday as part of a wider Christmas release, a local rights group said. Lambasted by critics at home and abroad for holding around 270 activists in prison, President Nicolas Maduro's administration said on Saturday it was releasing 80 of them with alternative sentences like community service.
Thirteen were paraded in front of television cameras at a meeting with a senior official, Delcy Rodriguez. She harangued them for violence and subversion, but wished them for Christmas.
Alfredo Romero, whose Penal Forum group tracks the detention of political activists and protesters, said 36 people had been freed by yesterday morning.
But he criticised the government for not giving them a blanket amnesty.
'They should release not just some but all of them, and not imprison anymore, he said.
The best-known locally among the newly freed activists were a former provincial mayor, Alfredo Ramos, and an opposition electoral adviser, Roberto Picon.
'I'm happy to be free. I'm with my family, Ramos was quoted as saying in local media. 'It was a tough ordeal, very difficult. It was an arbitrary detention, unjust. I didn't commit any crime.
Maduro, the 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, says all of the jailed activists were there on legitimate charges of plotting to overthrow his government and promoting violence.
Some 170 people died during two rounds of anti-Maduro street protests in 2014 and earlier this year.
Opponents say they are fighting for freedom against a 'dictatorship that has destroyed the Opec nation's economy and democracy.
Maduro accuses them of being part of a global right-wing plot to topple him in a coup.
US politician Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fierce critic of both Venezuela and Cuba's Communist government, called the pre-Christmas releases in Venezuela a hypocritical gesture.
'Maduro in Venezuela cynically ‘releases' 80 political prisoners who were actually innocent, parades and humiliates several on state TV...and expects thanks for Christmas ‘mercy', tweeted the Republican US representative from Florida. 'What a cruel farce.
Venezuela's best-known detained politician is Leopoldo Lopez, who remains under house arrest in Caracas, accused of spearheading violence in 2014.
Venezuela's new Constituent Assembly has declared Brazilian ambassador Ruy Pereira and Canadian charge d'affaires Craib Kowalik 'persona non grata, as relations between the troubled nation and its neighbours worsen.
The assembly's president, Delcy Rodriguez, confirmed the move during a press conference on Saturday announcing that the country is preparing to release around 80 jailed anti-government activists.
Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported that Pereira returned to Christmas festivities in his homeland on Friday, but will now no longer be able to return to Venezuela.
In response, the Brazilian embassy said Saturday that the move showed the Venezuelan government's reluctance to enter into dialogue.
Both Brazil and Canada have regularly accused Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro of various human rights abuses in the financially-stricken country.
The move also comes in the wake of tensions between Venezuela and some of the country's other South American neighbours, including Colombia and Peru.
US President Donald Trump in September called the country a 'socialist dictatorship and said Maduro was leading a 'corrupt regime.
The country is currently stuck in a deep political crisis, following an attempt by Maduro to consolidate his power and strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its authority by creating the rival Constituent Assembly, to rewrite the constitution.
Despite being oil rich, the country is also suffering an economic crisis, with widespread shortages of basic foods and medicines. More than 120 people have been killed in opposition protests in Venezuela this year.
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