Writing The National
“Get up, you’re in prison.” It was the only thing he heard Rayder Alexander Jiménez Heredia, 30-year-old barber, on July 31, 2024 when a group of officials detained him in Macuto, Barquisimeto, Lara state, while he was riding his motorcycle. Hundreds of kilometers away, his mother, living in Argentina, had a bad feeling. Something told him that his son was not well. He wasn’t wrong. He had been detained during the post-election protests that disowned Nicolas Maduro as the elected president of Venezuela.
Nobody knew anything about him. In Barquisimeto, his aunt Maydelen Heredia began asking his colleagues at the barbershop if they had seen him. After hours of anguish and uncertainty, his worst fears were confirmed: Rayder Jiménez had been detained and arrested as the 1,916 political prisoners detained in the framework of the post-election protests, according to figures from the NGO Foro Penal Updated October 7. Of that number, 1,676 prisoners are men and 240 women, 1,757 civilians in the group and 159 military personnel. Foro Penal specified that 1,846 are adults and 70 children between 14 and 17 years of age.
Rayder Jimenez He was not protesting when he was arrestedlike several of the political prisoners who have made their cases known after the arrests within the framework of the post-election protests. That day, he went to the barbershop where he works, located on 20th Avenue and 34th Street in Barquisimeto. I was serving a customer when a friend arrived at the store. She came from doing some shopping and asked him to take her on his motorcycle to her house, located in Macuto. He agreed.
On the way back, Rayder Jiménez encountered officials who asked him to stop. He obeyed. They asked him for his cell phone and since he didn’t have it, they arrested him. “Get on, you’re going to prison,” was the only thing they told him. They put him in the vehicle, took away his motorcycle and refused to explain to him. why they were detaining him.
“We investigated until among his own colleagues at the barbershop we They said that they had detained him in Macuto. There we began to investigate where they had taken him. We went to several places to look for him until we finally found him at the Pata e palo penitentiary center,” says Maydelen Heredia.
Post-election protests: everyone is a terrorist
Rayder Jiménez, like all those detained in the context of the post-election protests, was charged with terrorism. Also the charge of incitement al hatred, disturbance to public order and committing minor crimes because at the time of his arrest three minors were present. Immediately after they arrested him, his aunt says, the officials made videos claiming that Rayder Jiménez was a thug.
“They made a video saying that he was part of a criminal gang in Cabudare. They claimed that they detained him there, which is a lie. They accused him of gang activity, of stealing gasoline and so on. They did it with him and 14 other people who were arrested that dayincluding minors. The minors were already released with a presentation regime. It has been almost 70 days that my nephew and the other boys have been detained. They haven’t let us know anything. “They haven’t given us a hearing date.”
Since he was arrested, Maydelen Heredia has been able to see her nephew rarely. She is the only close relative that Rayder Jiménez has in the country. His mother, from Argentina, is afraid to give her name. Jiménez has a partner and a daughter living in Colombia. His father, although he lives in Barquisimeto, is an absent father. “I assumed the spokesperson for his case because I love my nephew very much, we have always been very close. I told him the day I visited him: we are living the process with you from the outside, Don’t think that we have forgotten about you, we will never do it”.
Pata e’palo detention center | Photo Archive
One of the few visits that Maydelen Heredia was able to make to her nephew was at the Pata e’ Palo Preventive Detention Center, located on Libertador Avenue in Barquisimeto. They charged him $5 to watch it during 30 minutes. “We were only able to see him once because we did not have more resources to pay for the visit and the things that had to be brought to him. There they did allow us to bring him food and hygiene items.”
That was August 24, 2024. The next day, around 3:30 am, Rayder Jiménez He was transferred with a group of 13 detainees to the Tocuyito Penal Centerin Valencia, without the knowledge of his relatives.
Tocuyito gives food full of worms
For Rayder Jiménez’s family, the entire experience has been horrible, traumatic and painful. They have not even allowed him to see him, they only authorized a single visit on October 3 and the meeting worried the family. “Seeing the conditions it is in made us even sadder because He is very depressed, crestfallen, thin and emaciated.. Everyone who is with him too. We know that, according to the stories of the same relatives who go to the visits, they are innocent.”
The visit, says Maydelen Heredia, It was quite uncomfortable and she was quite coerced.. Rayder had a guard behind him, she had another behind him, attentive to what they were talking about. “The things I could half ask him were in a low voice. When I asked him about the food with the look on his face he told me everything. Later, talking to other colleagues who were visiting, they were able to tell them that the food they are given is contaminated with worms and hair. They are not allowed sugar or salt. They are simple. The oatmeal they give him, for example, is simple, without sugar,” he denounces.. This makes Rayder Jiménez suffer from dizziness, in addition to the five pills a day that they give him because they also suffers from panic attacks. “They treat him for that, but not with the treatment that he usually takes, they are other treatments that they give him there,” he points out.
Before entering Tocuyito, he says, they gave him a talk about things that were not allowed because it was a maximum security prison. “They told us it was physical contact prohibited. Nor can we bring you letters or expressive messages. We can’t say ‘I love you’ when we leave because the guards punish them. They warned us about that before seeing the boys. They also didn’t allow us to bring anything at all. According to the guards, They are in charge of giving you everything but the boys denied it. The day they arrived they were given a hygiene and personal hygiene kit but they ran out of that a long time ago. They no longer have anything to brush or bathe with. They have nothing. They eat in the cell, the bathroom is in the cell and they have to eat with those bad smells present.”
The visit was very difficult for both the family and Rayder Jiménez. “We are not locked down, but it is almost as if we were. Every time we have to return to Barquisimeto We left our hearts and minds there with Rayder. I’m there working and really all I can think about is if they’re doing something to him or if he’s eating. It’s all quite difficult,” says the aunt.
Protests in Barquisimeto on Monday, October 7 | Photo file
Everything has been irregular and difficult
To the family It has been difficult to cover the costs of visits after the irregular transfer of Rayder Jiménez to Valencia. To visit it in Tocuyito you must pay 12 dollars for a one-way ticket and 12 dollars for a return ticket. Traveling to Caracas to carry out the legal procedures for your defense from Barquisimeto costs 15 dollars one way and another 15 dollars return. “If we go to Caracas from Valencia, taking advantage of the fact that they are closer, it costs 6 dollars. 12 dollars goes there too. Sometimes I don’t go alone because in Caracas the activity is faster and I don’t like going alone, I go accompanied. “Sometimes we go with other companions and then the expense is greater.”
Although they try to visit him weekly, costs do not allow it. Maydelen Heredia works selling fast food at her home from Thursday to Sunday. Sometimes Rayder Jiménez’s paternal family helps her. “The economic factor does not allow us to do so. We have gone through a lot of pain and sadness, especially my sister who is in Argentina. He wants to be here in Venezuela to accompany him and be with him, but Due to the economic factor, it is not possible. The situation is very difficult.”
Everything in Rayder’s case, Heredia claims, has been irregular. Despite economic difficulties, they have traveled to Caracas several times. to go to the Supreme Court of Justice and try to speak with the public attorney assigned to her case. «We always return with our tails between our legs. They don’t even give us the name of the lawyer. They only ask us for our phone numbers. We left papers, medical reports, everything they asked us to bring, the story of the events, all of that. Paperwork and that’s it. The last day we went, October 2, we took advantage of traveling to Caracas before the visit to ask and They told us that the lawyer was on rest. “They said that the assistant couldn’t give us more information because she wasn’t authorized.”
Rayder Jiménez does not know the name of your public defendernor the date for the hearing when there are already cases to which they have already been assigned. The relatives were told that only the detainee can see their file. The only thing they know is the case number. Irregularities and violations of their human rights continue.
Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas | Photo Archive
“We are going to continue putting pressure on the public defender to see If you at least give us your name, because several lists have come out of the hearings, but Rayder’s was not there. On Monday (last week) we will try again and when we return we will stay in Valencia for a week to see what else can be done for him,” says Heredia.
No more silence
Given the entire situation experienced with the case of Rayder Jiménez, one of the many that occurred due to the post-election protests, Maydelen Heredia participated in a peaceful protest in Barquisimeto on Monday, October 7. Several relatives of political prisoners were able to talk to the media without repression or censorship. “On channel 33, the next day, I saw a lot of criticism about our protest. They said that after the boys did what they did, we defend them. Since people are unaware of our situation, they speak forward. “He who is not in our shoes cannot understand us.”
Maydelen Heredia is not afraid to denounce what is happening with her nephew, although she is careful not to make his photo public to prevent the worst from happening: being beaten in Tocuyito.
“I think we have already been too silent. There are people who ask me if I am not afraid that they will retaliate against my nephew. and I wonder: what else can they do to you? The way I saw my nephew broke my heart in two. We have never gone through a situation as horrible as this,” he says.
Heredia assured that the protest took place peacefully and without altercations | Photo Archive
For her, there is nothing more horrible than the inhumane conditions in which he is being held: he cannot eat or drink water. “What fear am I going to have? The only thing to which What I fear is that they will beat him up and kill him, that is the only thing I fear. This silence is already good, we cannot continue being silent when they are suffering so much inside. Being outside is more frustrating, you spend the whole day thinking about them. It dawns and I think of Rayder, it falls and I think of Rayde. “I’m having lunch and my hunger goes away because I remember that he told me that he’s not eating well.”
His nephew told him that he was starving. “My boy for nothing, for the pleasure of I don’t know who, is going through all of that and it’s desperate and overwhelming. There are so many things that one feels like I don’t know how to be calm again, I don’t sleep well either. “Life completely changed all of us.”
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