Adolescents imprisoned by the Maduro government: “We cannot stand another day”

Theany Urbina reads a handwritten letter: “We can’t last another day,” says the text signed by her son, a 16-year-old student detained after the presidential elections in Venezuela, and seven other teenagers who are imprisonedaccused of terrorism.More than 2,400 people were arrested during the protests that broke out after the questioned re-election of President Nicolás Maduro, amid allegations of fraud by the opposition. Of the total, a hundred were minors.

A group of 86 teenagers have already been released, but it is estimated that about 30 are still detained. Urbina’s son Miguel, along with Yenderson, Daiber, Héctor, Bleider, Ángel, Diomer and Alexander, who also signed the letter, remain in a police station in Caracas awaiting their release.

“Someday I will leave this ugly place, this hell that no one belongs to,” continues the text that Urbina read with a broken voice in a protest for her son’s freedom this Thursday in front of the Prosecutor’s Office in Caracas. “This is not life, how is it possible to be paying for something that neither my colleagues nor I did,” he says.

The protests staged between July 29 and 30 left 27 dead – including two soldiers – and nearly 200 injured. The detainees were branded “terrorists” by Maduro himself.

Miguel Urbina was arrested on August 2 when he was eating a candy at the entrance to his house. “Two officials arrived and took him away,” says his mother, a 32-year-old manicurist, who claims he was not involved in demonstrations.

She assures that her son is isolated along with the other adolescents in a space where at least they do not have contact with common prisoners. “He told me he was afraid,” he continues. “My son is not a criminal, he is not a terrorist,” he insists.

This Thursday they delivered a document to the Prosecutor’s Office to request that they be released.

“We are deprived of liberty, locked up as if we were criminals or a danger to society, we are innocent of all the charges against us,” continues the letter, written in school handwriting.

Relatives say that before being transferred to the current detention site, some of the teenagers were given electric shocks and a bag was put over their heads, threatening to fill it with tear gas.

Women hold signs demanding justice during a demonstration to demand the release of young people detained during protests after the controversial presidential elections of July 28, near the Caracas Prosecutor’s Office on September 26, 2024. Photo: Federico PARRA / AFP)

Imprisoned teenagers: “Help us get out of here”

Also 16 years old, Ángel Moisés Ramírez, son of Nérida Ruiz, 39 years old, has been detained for almost 60 days. She hugs a photograph of her eldest son dressed in his school uniform.

He was taken from his home while he was taking care of his one and a half year old brother. They accused him of “qualified theft, incitement to hatred, terrorism and resistance to authority.” This after one of the motorcycles looted in a warehouse was placed on the road to go up to his house.

“He starts next week” the last year of high school, Ruiz tells AFP. “And that is his biggest concern, that he is starting classes and how he is going to do it,” highlights this mother, who works as a cashier in a furniture store.

Due to his family’s financial difficulties, Miguel Urbina was not studying, says his mother.

“Everyone in my house must work, my husband works, I work, and my son was working, learning carpentry,” she says.

“I was not studying but I was going to start studying to resume the third year” of high school, agrees Urbina, who calls for the release of all detained minors.

She clings to the paper on which the request for freedom of Miguel, the eldest of her four children, is recorded.

“The only thing we ask for is justice,” the letter states. “Please help us get out of this ugly place, support us, we cannot stand another day in this place, we are just young people who have nothing to do with what is happening in the country, we are not terrorists,” he says.