President Nicolás Maduro speaking on Con Maduro+ about the rights of those detained in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Photo: Presidential Press.
President Nicolás Maduro responded with indignation to the proposal made on Sunday by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele regarding a prisoner exchange that would include 252 migrants detained at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in exchange for alleged political prisoners in Venezuela, describing the Central American leader as acting under “Nazi schemes.”
Maduro demanded that the Bukele government “give proof of life of all the kidnapped youths, allow the visit of their lawyers, and, sooner rather than later, release them unconditionally!” He called for the immediate release of the 252 Venezuelans detained at CECOT, as well as the return to the United States of the Salvadoran migrant who US judges have said was illegally arrested.
In his program Con Maduro Más, the president questioned why Venezuelans held in Salvadoran prisons are being detained “without access to calls, lawyers, or human rights organizations; they have no proper judges; they didn’t commit any crimes there.”
“It’s a state kidnapping. A serious crime against humanity,” the head of state remarked, referring to the characterization of Bukele as a “serial human rights violator” by Attorney General Tarek William Saab. “The system of massive human rights violations against more than 85,000 Salvadorans has already been brought into question. There’s talk of at least 1,000 Salvadorans dying under torture in Bukele’s concentration camps. One day, all of this will come to light, and there will be justice,” he said.
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Maduro expressed his outrage two months after the victims’ families demanded proof of life for their kidnapped relatives in El Salvador. “He backstabs and acknowledges for the first time that he has 252 Venezuelans in his prisons without the right to legal defense, and he also refuses to publish proof of life… Is that democracy? Is it freedom?” Maduro questioned.
He criticized figures like María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López for publicly supporting Bukele’s continued imprisonment of Venezuelans and warned the public about the audacity of these political actors.
“If the world knew the rottenness of his concentration camps… the American dream would turn into a nightmare,” he said.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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