HRF mourns the death of Carmen Teresa Navas, the 82-year-old mother who spent months searching for her son, political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, only to learn that he had died in the custody of Venezuela’s regime nearly a year earlier. Her death exposes the devastating human cost of the machinery of repression.

Quero Navas was detained in January 2025 and held incommunicado with no official information provided to his family about his health, legal status, or place of detention. For months, prison officials repeatedly told Carmen Teresa Navas they did not know where her son was. Earlier this month, authorities finally confirmed he had died in Rodeo I prison in July 2025.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had granted precautionary measures for both Quero Navas and his mother, recognizing the grave and urgent risk they faced. Yet Venezuelan authorities continued to deny clear answers as Carmen Teresa repeatedly asked whether her son was alive and where he was being held.

Carmen Teresa Navas died without justice. Her case, like those of other mothers who have died while waiting for news of their imprisoned children, shows that political imprisonment in Venezuela destroys entire families. Democracies must demand truth, accountability, and the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience.