Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa, a close ally of opposition leader María Corina Machado, was placed under house arrest after his family said he was released from prison two days earlier, according to a report published Tuesday by The Associated Press. His son, Ramón Guanipa, said Guanipa was being held at home in the northwestern city of Maracaibo.
Ramón Guanipa said that after a Sunday release of several prominent opposition members, armed men in three vehicles intercepted him and his father and others traveling in a Caracas neighborhood. He said his father did not violate the two conditions of his release, including monthly check-ins with a court and a ban on travel outside Venezuela, and he showed a court document listing those conditions.
The report said the government had released Guanipa on Sunday along with several other prominent opposition members following lengthy politically motivated detentions. It also said Guanipa’s rearrest came hours later after his participation in demonstrations outside detention centers.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab’s office said on Monday via social media that it had “requested the competent court to revoke the precautionary measure granted to Juan Pablo Guanipa, due to his non-compliance with the conditions imposed by the aforementioned court.” The report said the office did not spell out what conditions Guanipa allegedly violated during the roughly 12 hours he was free.
The rearrest of Guanipa followed days of prisoner releases attributed to political pressure building around President Delcy Rodríguez, who began releasing prisoners after being sworn in as acting president. The report said Rodríguez’s government faced mounting calls to free hundreds more detainees whose detentions over months or years had been linked to political activity.
The report also tied Sunday’s releases to a visit to Venezuela by representatives of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Venezuelan prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal said it confirmed the release of at least 30 people on Sunday, as families gathered outside detention facilities and chanted, “We are not afraid! We are not afraid!”
The report said some of those released, including Guanipa, joined family members waiting outside detention sites, marching a short distance after the release. After his release, Guanipa told reporters, “I am convinced that our country has completely changed,” and he added, “I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country.” The report said he had spent more than eight months in custody in a Caracas detention facility.
The releases included several members of Machado’s political organization, including local organizer María Oropeza, who in 2024 livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officers as they broke into her home with a crowbar. The report said Machado told reporters in Washington on Monday that her rivals were trying to stop Venezuelan society from mobilizing, adding, “They are terrified that Venezuelan society will mobilize and express its voice civically.”
Machado also said of the detention threat toward Guanipa that “there’s no going back,” and she referenced the political fight ahead, adding, “What will Juan Pablo become now? What will Perkins become as a prisoner in his own home? A reference in this fight.”
The report described the broader political turmoil in Venezuela in the wake of the U.S. military’s Jan. 3 seizure of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from a Caracas compound, and their transfer to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges. ___ This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) that includes an upcoming documentary.