Venezuela begins releasing 39 imprisoned activists

Venezuela on Friday beganreleasing a group of opposition activists jailed for protestingagainst President Nicolas Maduro, a move that the governmentsaid would foster dialogue but that critics dismissed as a tokengesture by a dictatorship.

Opposition critics and rights groups say Maduro's governmentis still holding hundreds of political prisoners who were jailedfor leading anti-government street demonstrations, primarily in2014 and 2017. About 170 people died during the protests.

A group of 39 opposition activists will be released fromprison including Daniel Ceballos, former mayor of the restive western city of San Cristobal, according to a list published bySupreme Court president Maikel Moreno.

The list, posted on Moreno's Facebook page, does not includeLeopoldo Lopez, former mayor of the Caracas district of Chacaowho is the best known of Maduro's critics to be jailed.

Lopez, originally arrested in 2014, was granted house arrestlast year.

"The Truth Commission has made this recommendation at therequest of President Nicolas Maduro," said Delcy Rodriguez,president of the all-powerful Constituent Assembly, in televisedcomments. "He said that this is the path, the path of dialogue,the path of unity, the path of peace."

Maduro was re-elected on May 20 for a six-year term, andlast month called for a prisoner release to foster good will.

He says the country is victim of an "economic war" led bythe opposition with the backing of the United States and that opposition protests were in fact efforts to overthrow him.

The vast majority of the opposition boycotted the Mayelection on the grounds that it was rigged. They say Maduro has trampled on basic democratic freedoms and is leading the countryinto a hyperinflationary economic collapse.

Legislators from the opposition-controlled NationalAssembly, which has had most of its powers stripped by the Supreme Court since Maduro's ruling Socialist Party lost itsmajority in 2016, called the prisoner release a farce.

"Right now the government is staging a political show withthe release of prisoners, but in Venezuela all Venezuelans areprisoners," said legislator Tomas Guanipa.

"We are happy for the political prisoners who have beenfreed, but there are 30 million Venezuelans."

Venezuelan legislators were in the Colombian border city ofCucuta on Friday for a meeting of congressional delegations fromaround Latin America to discuss Venezuela's crisis.