This Monday a group of approximately 150 detainees in the “Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas” (CICPC, Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps) Maturín Delegation, joined the hunger strike that several initiated by inmates from different detention centers around the country.
lapatilla.com correspondent
Like the rest of the others “deprived of liberty” (euphemism for detainees or prisoner), those detained in the Cicpc demand that the Chavista authorities speed up the procedural delays and timely update their sentences. Relatives who went to the aforementioned headquarters this Monday reported that their relatives returned the food they brought to them after they joined the strike.
Yamelis López, who had come to bring food to her imprisoned relative, indicated that the detainees asked her to support them in the hunger strike until the Chavista Minister of Penitentiary Affairs, Celsa Bautista, responds to their requests.
“Madam Minister, the message is for you, please, we already know that you came here and we thank you for that, but everything remained the same as before you came, there has been no progress. There are many innocent people there who are being held, who after being accused have already been sentenced innocent. In addition to the inhumane conditions in which they are held,” said López.
Likewise, she added that there are detainees for whom a file has not been opened (have not been arraigned) nor have a trial been opened and they have already been deprived of their liberty for up to three years. She denounced that there are cases in which they allegedly make people ‘assume a crime’ (sic, confess a crime) that they have not committed and others in which they are being tried twice for the same act.
For her part, Yaneidis Brito stated that although they recently transferred several detainees to different detention centers and released others, there are still more than 150 imprisoned. She affirms that the space in the Cicpc is very limited, which causes overcrowding and in turn contamination and diseases such as scabies (scabies) and tuberculosis.
“We want to emphasize the transfers that were made to Puente Ayala, please, Madam Minister, put your hand on your heart, we do not have money to move to another state (to visit our relatives). If the La Pica prison was adapted to have our relatives here nearby, the last transfer that was made was to El Dorado (600 km, four hundred miles away),” said the citizen.