“They have tortured me and suppressed me, but they will not silence me. My voice is the only thing I have left.”

This is how the story of Juan, a young man in his 20s, begins. He claims he was physically and mentally tortured by Venezuelan security forces after being detained in connection with the July 28 presidential election.

He was one of hundreds arrested at protests after electoral authorities dominated by government loyalists declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the winner.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) did not make public the results of the vote, with Venezuela’s opposition calling the official results fraudulent and pointing to results it obtained with the help of election observers as showing a landslide victory for its candidate, Edmundo González Sri Lanka.

Juan was released from prison in mid-November, days after Maduro called on judicial authorities to “rectify” any injustice in the arrest.

The BBC spoke to him via video call. For his safety, we have decided to withhold some details of his case and have changed his name.

The young man claimed that many detainees were mistreated, given “rotten food” and the most rebellious were locked in “torture chambers”.

He showed the BBC documents and evidence corroborating his story, which echoed other testimonies and complaints from NGOs.

Juan, an anti-government political activist, said the campaign and days leading up to the election were “full of hope” with many people keen to vote for change.

But news of Maduro’s victory shortly after midnight on Sunday turned celebration for many into confusion and anger.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest the results, which they denounced as fraudulent.

A subsequent police crackdown left more than 20 protesters dead, the opposition and international groups said.

Maduro and some of his officials have in turn blamed the deaths on opposition, “far-right” and “terrorist” groups.

Gonzalo Himiob of the Venezuelan NGO Foro Penal said people were arrested simply “to celebrate the opposition’s announcement of Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner, or to post on social media publish something”.

“We also have people who are not even protesting but for one reason or another they are getting arrested close to protesting,” he added.

Juan said that’s what happened to him.

The young political activist said he was on a mission when a group of masked men intercepted him, covered his face and beat him, accusing him of being a terrorist.

“They put Molotov cocktails and gasoline on me and took me to a detention center,” he continued.

He was held in a prison in Venezuela’s interior for several weeks before being transferred to Tocolon Prison, a notorious high-security prison about 140 kilometers southwest of the capital, Caracas.

There he would have what he calls the worst experience of his life.

“When we arrived at Tocolon, they stripped us naked, beat us and humiliated us. We were not allowed to raise our heads to look at the guards; we had to lower our heads to the floor,” Juan recalled.

Juan was assigned a small cell measuring three meters by three meters, which he had to share with five other men.

There were six beds arranged in three bunk beds, and there was a septic tank and “a pipe for a shower” in one corner. That’s the bathroom.

“In Tocolon, I felt more like I was in a concentration camp than a prison,” the young man said. He described the beds as “concrete tombs” with very thin mattresses.

“They torture us physically and mentally. They don’t let us sleep, they always come and wake us up and queue up,” he explained.

“They would wake us up around 05:00 and line us up behind the cells. The guards would ask us to show our passes and numbers.”

He added that at around 06:00 they would turn on the water for six minutes to allow for bathing.

“Six minutes, six people, one shower, cold water. If you’re the last one there and you don’t have time to take the soap off, you’re going to be covered in soap all day long,” he said.

Then, he added, they waited for breakfast, which sometimes arrived at 06:00 and sometimes at 12:00.

Dinner is sometimes at 21:00 and sometimes at 02:00.

“There was nothing to do except wait for food. We could only walk around the small cell and tell stories. We also talked about politics, but in a low voice because if the guards heard them, they would punish us. “

Juan said many of his fellow inmates were depressed and acting like zombies.

“They gave us rotten food – like the scraps of meat you would give to chickens or dogs or expired sardines.”

He said some detainees were regularly beaten or forced to “walk like frogs” with their hands on their ankles.

He described “punishment cells” to which those considered the most rebellious, or those who dared to talk politics or ask to call relatives, were sent.

Juan said he was held in a punishment cell in Tocolon and only had one meal every two days.

“It was a very dark cell, meter for meter. I was very hungry. What kept me going was thinking about all the injustices that were happening and that one day I would get out of there,” he said.

Another torture cell was called “Adolf’s Bed,” after the first man who died there, Juan said.

“It’s a dark, oxygen-deprived room the size of a vault. They put you in it for several minutes until you can’t breathe, pass out, or start banging on the door in despair. They put me in it and I held on. Come down. “For just over five minutes, I thought I was going to die,” he recalled.

Young people said that in this prison, prisoners have 10 minutes of outdoor exercise time three times a week, but many people just stay in their cells.

Gonzalo Himiob of the Criminal Law Forum described conditions in Tocolon as “deplorable” and said detainees’ basic rights, such as access to a lawyer of the detainee’s choice, were hampered by violated.

“They all have public defenders — and the government knows that if it allows access to a private attorney who is not a public official, he or she can document all of the due process violations that are occurring.”

In October, United Nations experts reported serious human rights violations in the run-up to the presidential election and during subsequent protests, including political persecution, excessive use of force, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by state security forces. Relevant civil society organizations.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating whether the Venezuelan government is suspected of committing crimes against humanity.

The Venezuelan government denies the accusations and says the investigation “responds to the intention to use international criminal justice mechanisms for political purposes.”

The BBC asked the prosecutor’s office for interviews about the allegations of mistreatment and torture of detainees but had not received a reply by press time.

Juan was released in November, but as of December 30, there were still 1,794 political prisoners in Venezuela, according to the Criminal Forum.

Juan said many of those detained in Tocolon have their hopes pinned on one date: the presidential inauguration on January 10, 2025.

On this day, opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who lives in exile in Spain, said he would return to Venezuela and take office as president.

His claim to the presidency is based on official vote results collected by the opposition with the help of election observers.

The tallies, which accounted for 85% of the total, were uploaded to the website and reviewed by independent observers, who said they showed a landslide victory for Gonzalez.

U.S. President Joe Biden met with Gonzalez on Tuesday and called him the “real winner” of Venezuela’s election.

However, it is unclear how Gonzalez, for whom authorities have issued an arrest warrant, plans to enter Venezuela or who will be sworn in as the National Assembly is dominated by Maduro loyalists.

Still, Juan said prisoners held in Tocolon are holding out hope that a change of government will lead to their release on Friday.

Meanwhile, Maduro’s government has branded any talk of a political transition a “conspiracy” and threatened that anyone who supports a change of leadership “will pay the price.”

Juan admitted that he felt a certain amount of guilt about being freed while hundreds of his “comrades were still languishing in prison.”

But he said he was determined to return to the streets on January 10 to show support for Edmundo Gonzalez.

“I’m no longer afraid of the Venezuelan government,” he explained.

“They have charged me with the most serious crimes, such as terrorism, even though I was just a young man who did nothing but love his country and help those around him.”

“I’m not afraid,” Juan repeated, before admitting that he had left some written testimony in a safe place “just in case something happened to me.”

Illustrations by Daniel Arce Lopez.