José was arrested on Monday, July 29, one day after the elections in which President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner, although the Venezuelan opposition denounced fraud.
The 17-year-old was riding pillion on a motorbike when he came across a police checkpoint. He could not avoid that route, it was the only way to access his house. The other entrances to the neighbourhood were occupied by neighbours protesting so that the government would show the voting records and recognise the victory of the opposition candidate. Edmundo Gonzalez.
Carmela, José’s mother, says that the police asked the friend who was driving the motorcycle for his papers. Since he didn’t have them, they arrested him. The next day they released the other boy, but not her son.
When she learned that José had been transferred to a military headquarters instead of a police station, Carmela began to worry.
José is one of the 114 minors who appear on the list of 1,780 detainees after the elections of the NGO Foro PenalMaduro said there are about 2,300 people arrested.
On Thursday, August 29, when José had completed a month in prison, Foro Penal reported that 16 teenagers had been released after a court hearing.
Carmela agreed to speak about José’s arrest on condition of anonymity. She also asked BBC Mundo not to identify where he was captured or in which detention centre he is being held.
“My son is already in jail. We don’t want anything worse than that.”he said in a phone call.
Like other teenagers, José is charged with the crimes of incitement to hatred, punishable by 8 to 10 years in prison, and terrorism, punishable by 25 to 30 years in prison.
Venezuelan media reported that a group of minors were transferred to Tocuyito, a prison for common prisoners located in the state of Carabobo, 178 kilometers west of Caracas.
Maria Corina Machado, leader of the opposition movement that is demanding the voting records along with Edmundo Gonzalez, made an unusual plea during a speech to her supporters: “From here, as a mother, I want to ask the prisoners in these prisons to take care of our children.”
The arrests of minors have been denounced by international organizations, such as the United Nations Human Rights Mission in Venezuela. Among those arrested are also activists, journalists, political leaders and ordinary citizens.
Carmela campaigned and voted for Maduro. In this testimony narrated in the first person, she not only tells what José’s first month of detention was like, but also the frustration he feels for having supported the government that now has his son in prison.
The search for Joseph
“My son was not in the protests because we are Chavistas.
I myself attended Maduro’s marches and his closing campaign. I worked for him and voted for him.And now look at the consequences. The problem is that one of the statues of (Hugo) Chavez fell near where we live.
My son was caught by policemen dressed in black. I couldn’t go and get him at the time because there were a lot of tear gas bombs and bottles thrown at the demonstrations after the elections.
At first I was calm because an aunt of the boy who was with my son told me that they were going to release them, but then they released him but not my son.
She told me to go look for him with the ID, that they were going to give him to me because I am his mother and he is a minor. And I trusted him because I knew he wasn’t in any protest.
At 10:00 pm I went there and when I asked the police officer about my son, he told me he wasn’t there. I insisted and he said: “I’m telling you he’s not here. If you like it, fine, and if not, I’ll put you in there too.”.
I told him that that was not the way to respond to me. “If you already released the person who was with my son, you should have released my son,” I told him. And he replied that there was no one there.
I went to look for my son with my sister and my cousin, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. Until 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday we discovered where they were holding him. They told us they were going to release him and it turns out that today he has been in custody for a month.
The next day they took him to court and Now they are accusing him of inciting hatred, terrorism and obstructing public roads.. After that, they sent him to a prison that is further away from us.”
The first 15 days in jail
“I managed to see my son 15 days after the arrest. And those days were fatal for him because He had a fever and was never seen by a doctor or taken to a hospital..
I found out about this because I know someone who is detained there and she told me that he was sick. I have 5 children besides him, who is the first. The youngest is 1 year old. Since I had no one to leave the baby with, my brothers went to bring her some medicine that I bought for her.
I put my son on phenytoin, an anti-seizure medication. He had meningitis at 8 months old and when he was 15, he had another seizure. This time he fell and split his lip and forehead.
He must not have a very high fever or a headache because a seizure may occur.
He had the flu the day he was caught, his throat hurt, so I prescribed him everything: antibiotics, anti-allergy medication, vitamins and pills for his headache.
My brothers asked to see him and they were not allowed. They told the police to take him to the hospital and they did nothing. My son had a fever for two and a half days. I went afterwards and when they let me in, I explained to him how he had to take everything because I studied Nursing and I know how to treat him.
The next time I was able to visit him, The child had an abscess on his forehead and a swollen eye.”I spoke to the lawyer and she asked for him to be taken to a hospital, but they did nothing. So I gave him a course of antibiotics, with the help of a police officer, and he got better after a few days.”
The first month in prison
“Today my son completed one month in detention. I could see him and I noticed he was very sad.He spends the day crying and today I found out that he gives his food to other prisoners because he doesn’t want to eat anymore.
This is what his classmates told me, other teenagers who were also imprisoned after the elections, just like my son. Everyone is very depressed.
I have been bringing him food every morning. His grandmother and I try to prepare everything we know he likes: arepa, pastelitos, sandwiches. But my friends told me that he only eats the sweets.
My son is sharing a cell with eight other boysThere are three cement bunk beds, and two people sleep in each one. There are also some young men detained for knocking down the statue of Chavez, but they are separate.
Since they don’t have a bathroom, they do their business in bags. There is a kind of latrine that is constantly covered and when they uncover it with a drain cleaner, the cell is flooded with sewage.
You don’t know how scared I am that he’ll get an infection.
I brought them an old curtain that I have at home, so they have some privacy. When they are doing their business, everyone is exposed to the gaze of others.
My son says to me: “Mom, get me out. Why am I here if I haven’t done anything wrong?” He asks me what a terrorist is, he doesn’t even know what that means. What will my child know about terrorism? “Mom, explain to me,” she says.
“Mom, talk to someone and get me out of here.” And I don’t have an answer to give her.
I went with the mothers of other children to Miraflores (the government palace). We wanted to talk to Maduro or Diosdado. (Cabello, Minister of the Interior and Justice), to tell them that they are making a mistake.
But we couldn’t get close. All of that is locked up. If I could talk to Maduro, I would ask him why he is imprisoning innocent people, like my son.”.
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