"Freedom, freedom," hundreds of people chanted who were congregated on Monday afternoon in front of the headquarters, where about fifty students remained on hunger strike.
Student leaders agreed to continue the protest to demand the presence of representatives from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), under the OAS, in order for them to analyze the situation of human rights.
This text is from a translation of Casto Ocando's article in El Nuevo Herald, posted to Eligio Cedeño's official website.
"One of the objectives that the strike successful achieved was the release of Rivas, but we will maintain the protest until we achieve a visit from an IACHR delegation to the country," said the student Miguel Pizarro of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV, in Spanish).
The strike will also be continued by a group of five political prisoners who joined this Sunday.
"We will continue if the students continue," read an email sent to El Nuevo Herald by the businessman Eligio Cedeño, who has spend two and a half years under arrest in "El Helicoide," headquarters of the Venezuelan Intelligence and Prevention Services Authority (DISIP, in Spanish).
Together with Cedeño the former pólice officials Lázaro Forero and Iván Simonovis joined the strike, as well as the former intelligence agent Juan Guevara and the journalist Leocenis García.
Rivas was charged on September 7th, after having participated in a protest two weeks earlier, for the alleged offenses of criminal intent, resisting arrest, and incitement of civil war and use of small arms.
The case prompted criticism from legal experts and opposition leaders, who considered the accusations applied as excessive and intended to criminalize student and civic protests.
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