Maduro ordered the adaptation of Tocuyito and Tocorón prisons to hold those arrested during the protests

• The president said he would allocate resources so that both facilities would be ready in 15 days | Main photo: EFE

On Thursday, August 1, Nicolás Maduro ordered two prisons to be opened to hold those arrested in protests against the election results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared Maduro the winner.

Maduro said he will detain the protesters in the Aragua Penitentiary Center, better known as the Tocorón prison, and the Tocuyito Prison in Carabobo.

“I have decided to create two maximum security prisons for all the new generation gangs that are involved in riots and criminal attacks, and there will be no forgiveness or consideration,” said the president during the National Council of Productive Economy.

He also said that he will allocate resources to make sure that both buildings are beautiful within 15 days.

“We have more than 1,200 people arrested and we are going to arrest another 1,000 more. We are going to arrest them all. We are arresting them one by one and this time there will be no forgiveness,” warned Maduro.

Photo: Presidential Press

Detainees could be subjected to forced labor

The president invited the officials present to make a bet on whether these maximum security prisons would succeed or not in re-educating the detainees.

(We are) going to turn them into productive farms, so that (the prisoners) can produce, so that they can work, as they did in that time,” he said, referring to the dictatorship of Marco Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958), which launched a work plan for prisoners.

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He also said that the detained protesters had been trained in the United States, Colombia, Peru and Chile. In his opinion, the training consisted of destroying police units.

Photo: EFE

Number of arrests and deaths in protests

Although the government of Nicolás Maduro stated that there were more than 1,200 people arrested for the protests, the non-governmental organization (NGO Foro Penal) gave different figures on Thursday, August 1.

Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of Foro Penal, confirmed that 672 arrests and 11 deaths have been documented in the context of post-election protests since July 29.

The arrests took place in these 23 entities, according to the NGO:

-Capital District: 111

-Anzoategui:110

-Carabobo:106

-Miranda: 51

-Barinas: 37

-Zulia: 36

-New Sparta: 30

-Lara:29

-Portuguese: 25

-Aragua: 20

-Merida: 19

-Yaracuy: 15

-Táchira: 12

-Trujillo: 12

-Cojedes: 11

-Guarico: 10

-La Guaira: 9

-Amazonas: 9

-Monagas: 9

-Apure: 4

-Falcon: 4

-Bolívar: 2

-Sucre: 1

The NGO representative highlighted that the deaths were recorded in the Capital District (5) and the states of Yaracuy (2), Zulia (2), Aragua (1) and Táchira (1).

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