Statement: Voluntad Popular on the amnesty process

Voluntad Popular will always support any process that allows for the release of all political prisoners, national reconciliation and the re-institutionalization of our country toward a full democracy of rights and guarantees.

We consider that the instrument called the Amnesty Law is an important step in the right direction. The recent releases from prison are progress for the country and a necessary reparation for those who should not have spent a single day deprived of their liberty.

We hope that this process can become an opportunity to strengthen democratic coexistence, with the truth first, and with real guarantees of non-repetition, equality before the law, respect for the Constitution and full exercise of civil and political rights.

However, this instrument does not cover important cases of our recent political history, affecting civilians and military personnel who must be included if we want to promote that spirit of concord. In the face of ambiguous interpretations of the law, we demand that no one be left out in order to guarantee the inclusion of all sectors.

Likewise, we insist on the urgency of reconstituting the Judiciary in Venezuela. The thousands of cases of political prisoners were the product of the politicization and ineffectiveness of the justice system, where the exercise of politics was criminalized, turning the courts into bodies of persecution and the use of mechanisms such as disqualifications from office into a form of political exclusion.

This is the real task: to lay the institutional foundations so that our country never again knows the pain caused by prison, intolerance and political persecution.

Finally, we reiterate that we stand with the victims and their families, hoping #QueSeanTodos and that, together with the democratic forces, we enforce the popular will of all Venezuelans.