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By La Hora de Venezuela
In Venezuela, the State maintains a communication ecosystem that seeks to impose the idea of a “model” country in terms of women’s rights. During commemorative dates, such as November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which honors the Mirabal sisters —Dominican activists murdered in 1960 by Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship— official propaganda intensifies: ministries, public media, and institutional accounts disseminate messages celebrating alleged progress, deliberately omitting complaints, statistics, and cases of institutional violence.
This discourse, sustained by the state media machinery and reinforced by censorship limiting access to independent information, stands in stark contrast to the reality documented by human rights organizations. That reality includes forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, isolation, and cruel treatment against women.
In Venezuela, more than 180 women are currently imprisoned for political reasons, and another 24 remain missing, according to organizations such as Provea and the Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones (OVP). Many face not only persecution but also humiliation, invisibilization, and degrading conditions within the prison system.
On November 25, while the State celebrated “achievements” in gender matters, families, activists, and Venezuelan organizations organized physical and digital protests to denounce the situation of political prisoners. The citizen digital campaign under the hashtag #EllasNoEstánSolas (They’re not alone) reached a peak of at least 288 mentions on social media, where users shared statistics, testimonies, and reports of torture, disappearances, and degrading conditions.
The Official Narrative: A Model in Women’s Rights
While citizen organizations denounced forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detentions, and patterns of institutional violence against women, the official media ecosystem deployed a completely opposite narrative. On VTV, Venezuela News and Telesur the content presented Nicolás Maduro’s regime as a leader in preventing and eradicating gender-based violence, supported by official acts, statements, and celebratory reports.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) Instagram account published more than 10 propagandistic pieces in a single day: institutional videos, ceremonies, speeches, recognitions, and messages praising alleged judicial advances in women’s protection. All with aesthetics and language aimed at reinforcing the image of an active State committed to defending Venezuelan women’s rights.
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None of these official communications mentioned women political prisoners, complaints of institutional violence, or reports of forced disappearances, isolation, torture, or degrading treatment. Nor was there reference to emblematic cases that families, NGOs, and activists brought to public attention on that date.
In parallel, media aligned with the State discourse, such as Carupanero.com, covered official events that transformed the commemoration of violence into a festival of music and dance, generating a deep dissonance with the reality of prisons and the situation of women political prisoners. In Plaza Bolívar, for example, the festival “Alegría con nombre de mujer” was held, commemorating the second anniversary of the Great Mission Venezuela Woman.
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The Ministry of Women and regional accounts of other entities leveraged these acts to legitimize the TSJ, presenting themselves as guarantors of rights in theoretical forums, while in Táchira, the lighting of purple lights led by the governor’s wife, Karem Durán de Bernal, was presented as an awareness gesture, reducing gender violence to an aesthetic and depoliticized element.
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Together, these practices show how the Venezuelan regime transforms commemorations and gender policies into a propaganda spectacle, hiding institutional violence and repression, while constructing a narrative that, on the surface, celebrates progress and protection, while in reality human rights complaints continue to be ignored.
More than 180 Women Imprisoned for Political Reasons
Complaints from Provea, the OVP and families of detainees converge on a clear diagnosis: women deprived of liberty for political reasons in Venezuela face double violence. To the state persecution that arbitrarily detains them, prosecutes them without guarantees, or makes them disappear for days or weeks, is added gender-based violence marked by humiliating treatment, degrading protocols, isolation, and invisibilization within the prison system.
Testimonies collected during November 25 activities describe a recurring pattern: degrading searches, absurd restrictions for allowing visits, constant intimidation, and punishments for political reasons. “They humiliate us, mistreat us, offend us, and subject us to shameful situations,” denounced the mother of Carla Silva, detained since 2020 for knowing someone linked to the Gedeón case. Other families warned that women are systematically left out of release processes: “Whenever there are releases, men are freed. They are not,” a mother complained.
Emblematic cases illustrate the breadth of the pattern. Yanin Pernía, sentenced to 30 years for the alleged drone assassination case in 2018, has gone a year without visits because INOF prevents access to non-direct relatives. She became a symbol of isolation and punishment. The case of Génesis Riera, detained in precarious conditions with reports of torture, was also widely mentioned during the day. The same occurs with Emirlendris Benítez, a victim of sexual violence, torture, and severe physical harm while in State custody, according to human rights organizations.
More recent cases, such as Ruth Morales —detained in front of her 8- and 10-year-old daughters in Guárico for participating in a protest— show how criminalization reaches young women demanding basic rights. Her sister emphasized the political nature of her detention and the harsh impact on the family: “My mother, at 60, is taking care of the girls. Ruth is not a criminal. She is innocent.”
The list also includes elderly women and a minor among the 182 imprisoned and 24 missing women, creating an alarming panorama described by organizations as a State policy. Each of these cases was made visible and amplified during the #EllasNoEstánSolas tweetstorm, where families, activists, and citizens demanded the immediate release of all women incarcerated for political reasons.
#EllasNoEstánSolas: Physical and Digital Protest
A day organized by human rights organizations and families of political prisoners mobilized both the streets and social media. The Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (Clippve) promoted a banner protest in front of the United Nations headquarters in Caracas, where women, activists, and relatives held photographs, names, and testimonies of the detainees. Images of butterfly wings —in tribute to the Mirabal sisters— and relatives holding portraits of their daughters, sisters, or daughters-in-law marked a protest full of symbolism. The action was replicated in Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Quito, extending the demand beyond Venezuelan borders.
In parallel, the call sparked intense digital conversation, marked by abrupt peaks, opposing narratives, and a strong dispute over the meaning of the commemoration.
The volume of mentions, monitored through a social listening exercise on the protest and the digital conversation around November 25, shows a clearly situational behavior. We recorded over 500 mentions during the analyzed period, with a peak on November 25, reaching 288 mentions, far above the daily average for the month, which rarely exceeded 15.
This peak was preceded by an increase on November 23 (76 mentions), associated with early calls for the tweetstorm, and a remnant on November 26 (90 mentions). However, interest dropped almost immediately: by November 27, it had fallen to 19 mentions, and in the following days, it reduced to single-digit figures.
It was an intense but brief conversation, sustained almost exclusively by the symbolic power of the date and the mobilization of families and activists.
In detail, the narrative was dominated by political denunciation terms rather than campaign slogans. Expressions such as “women political prisoners” and “political prisoners in Venezuela” accounted for more than 40% of total mentions, showing that the conversation revolved around prison conditions and institutional violence, not formal labels. Even the specific mention of “180 women,” related to the number of detainees, surpassed the hashtag #EllasNoEstánSolas, which represented 13% of the total.
Platform distribution provides another key insight. X accounted for 43% of mentions, displacing Facebook to second place with 30.3%, followed by Instagram (23.1%). TikTok, in contrast, had a marginal presence (3.6%). This dominance of X is particularly significant considering that the platform remains blocked in Venezuela.
On TikTok, although the hashtag #EllasNoEstánSolas appeared in most of the content we analyzed (55% of videos), it performed the worst: an average of 693 views and 35 likes. In contrast, the informative and denunciatory narrative —especially under the keyword “political prisoners in Venezuela”— was what truly connected with the audience: averaging 6,756 views and over 600 likes, almost 10 times more than the campaign. Videos about the “180 women” figure also reached significant engagement (5,404 average views), confirming that TikTok users connected with the denunciation more than symbolic activism.
Civil society videos focused on documenting torture, forced disappearances, critical sanitary conditions, and testimonies from relatives. Activists like Melanio Escobar, creators like Osnelli Murat, and media outlets like VPITV promoted the most impactful messages: verified figures, accounts of sexual violence, medical negligence, and prolonged isolation.
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On the other hand, the government replicated the propagandistic narrative in its videos: festivals like “Alegría con nombre de mujer”, social management days, municipal events, and educational content entirely disconnected from the prison crisis.
Among the actors reinforcing this official line were profiles and media affiliated with PSUV: Nerio Rico, who presented a “0800 Bigote” program day as an achievement of the Great Mission Venezuela Woman; Carupanero.com, which promoted the “Alegría con nombre de mujer” festival in a festive tone; and accounts like sanchezsanchez559, which showcased municipal and PSUV activities as expressions of “sisterhood” and revolutionary management.
Together, these contents consolidated an institutional celebration atmosphere that deliberately erased any reference to complaints and the prison crisis highlighted on November 25.
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The digital conversation showed a clear contrast: while abuses, torture, and disappearances were made visible by citizens, the commemoration was reduced to official propaganda and celebrations, disconnected from the violence faced by women political prisoners in Venezuela.
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