HRF celebrates the release of Governor Luis Fernando Camacho in Bolivia

NEW YORK (Aug. 29, 2025) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) welcomes this afternoon’s release of Bolivian prisoner of conscience Luis Fernando Camacho after two years and eight months of arbitrary imprisonment in the notorious Chonchocoro maximum security prison. He was jailed for leading nationwide nonviolent demonstrations in 2019 after the Organization of American States (OAS) determined Evo Morales’s MAS party committed electoral fraud. Camacho, the democratically elected governor of Santa Cruz, was violently arrested on Dec. 28, 2022, and HRF submitted his case to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) in February 2023. 

In March 2025, HRF received a favorable opinion declaring Camacho’s detention arbitrary under international law and calling for his immediate release. Camacho’s conditional release from Chonchocoro to house arrest was ordered on Aug. 26, 2025 in a hearing in La Paz on the first bogus “terrorism” case for the 2019 demonstrations. The release stipulated Camacho’s right to resume his role as governor with bail and including a travel ban. HRF was present in the courtroom alongside the governor’s domestic legal team. A similar order was issued on Aug. 27, 2025 (under a second bogus “terrorism” case for 2022 demonstrations). 

He was released from Chonchocoro at 2:13 pm EST today and is on his way to Santa Cruz.

“It took the Bolivian judiciary almost three years to comply with the law and about five months to finally apply, at least in part, the international law decision secured by HRF, which called for Gov. Camacho’s unconditional and immediate release,” said HRF Chief Legal and Policy Officer Javier El-Hage, who led HRF’s legal team representing Camacho pro bono as part of its Impact Litigation program. 

“While his release is currently not unconditional and his freedom will continue to be restricted under partial house arrest in Santa Cruz, the fact that he will no longer be punished in inhuman and degrading conditions at 4,000 meters above sea level — HRF dubbed Chonchocoro ‘the Bolivian Siberia’ in our submission to the UNWGAD — and instead will be allowed to return to his hometown in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia, as well as the fact that he will be allowed to go back to ‘work’ as governor, is an immense source of relief and hope for his family and the people of Santa Cruz,” El-Hage added. “His conditional release, which we expect to turn into unconditional freedom in the next few months, occurs in a context of hope for the more than one hundred Bolivian political prisoners, including Potosí indigenous civil leader Marco Antonio Pumari, whose conditional release as co-defendant of Camacho was also ordered on Aug. 25, and former President Jeanine Áñez, who has finally been granted the right as former president to face trial before Congress.”

Along with instructions to review Camacho’s case, the Supreme Court also ordered the immediate review of the pre-trial detention of Pumari, one of the key figures of the 2019 protests that led to the resignation of Morales and the vice presidential candidate alongside Camacho in the 2020 general election. He was detained in December 2021 under allegations similar to Camacho’s. After a hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 26, the court decided to lift his pre-trial detention. Another judge is scheduled to review a second case that was brought against him, and he could see him released from prison in the coming days.

The court also ordered the review of the cases against Jeanine Añez, who was president of the Bolivian Senate and later assumed the interim presidency following Morales’ resignation. She was detained in March 2022, just five months after Luis Arce, a close ally of Morales and fellow member of the MAS party, took office following elections organized by the interim government. She was accused of participating in a plot to oust Evo Morales and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “resolutions contrary to the constitution.” 

Añez is also facing charges related to the killings of dozens of Morales supporters during protests in the towns of Sacaba and Senkata in 2019. As a former president, Añez had to face trial before Congress to determine her responsibility for these events. Due to undue influence from the MAS party, however, the case was pushed to ordinary courts. During the Aug. 26 hearing, the judges presiding over the case shockingly revealed that they faced political persecution and threats from the government of Luis Arce for having initially ruled that the case was not under their jurisdiction.

“For nearly 20 years, the MAS party gradually and severely undermined the independence of institutions, particularly the judiciary, and persecuted the political opposition and silenced dissent. However, the Bolivian people made their voices heard at the polls earlier this month and roundly rejected the authoritarianism and economic mismanagement of the regime, opening the door to a peaceful reestablishment of the democratic order in the country. The release of political prisoners even before a transition of power has taken place is a promising sign the courts no longer feel beholden to the ruling party,” Alvaro Piaggio, HRF’s senior policy officer for the Americas, said.

Peaceful and competitive elections, as well as the reparation of injustices committed by a regime-controlled judiciary, are meaningful steps toward the reconstruction of democratic institutions in Bolivia, but the country has a long way to go to fully restore democratic governance. International organizations, civil society, and all democracies must remain engaged to guarantee a peaceful democratic transition and Bolivia’s full compliance with its international human rights obligations.

In addition to El-Hage, HRF’s team, who represented Camacho pro bono and traveled to Geneva to litigate before the UNWGAD and to La Paz to attend several of the Camacho hearings, included HRF’s Legal and Program Officer Claudia Bennett and Bolivian constitutional scholar and HRF special consultant Luis Yáñez. The Camacho domestic legal team was led by Bolivian criminal attorney and former judge Martín Camacho.

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.