SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Starting July 1, 2026, SAR no longer publishes reports for the incidents that it records. SAR continues to monitor and record incidents that will be used in the annual Free to Think report. This page provides a record of incidents reported up to that date. Learn more about the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.

Date of Incident: October 31, 2025

Attack Types: Killings, Violence, Disappearances | Imprisonment

Institution(s):Central University of Venezuela

Region & Country:Americas | Venezuela

New or Ongoing:New Incident

On October 31, 2025, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) arrested two Central University of Venezuela (UCV) art students while they were conducting thesis research at the Aragua Penitentiary Center.

Noel Cisneros and Katiuska Castillo Vásquez were at the prison working on a documentary, which they planned to produce as a graduate thesis for the UCV School of the Arts. The prison’s security detail intercepted and detained them after they took a photograph of the building’s facade. Six hours later, SEBIN patrols arrested Cisneros, Castillo, and two assisting documentary filmmakers.

In the three days following the incident, the families of the detainees visited four different detention centers multiple times, yet authorities refused to provide official information regarding the students’ whereabouts. All four students and filmmakers were released on November 3, 2025. The detentions came amid a rise in political prisoners and increasing criminalization of student activism in Venezuela following the contested election of President Nicolás Maduro to his third term in July 2024.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about the temporary disappearance of university students in apparent retaliation for the content of their academic work. State authorities have a responsibility to abstain from restricting or retaliating against nonviolent academic work. In addition to the harm to the immediate victim, such actions undermine academic freedom and democratic society generally.

Sources:
*This incident was identified by Aula Abierta, a member of the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the America’s Monitoring Working Group.
https://www.elnacional.com/2025/10/detenidos-cuatro-jovenes-mientras-realizaban-trabajo-academico/
https://x.com/VivaLaUCV/status/1985582041145229392?s=20 https://www.radiofeyalegrianoticias.com/detienen-a-tesistas-de-artes-de-la-ucv/ https://www.omct.org/es/recursos/declaraciones/venezuela-detencion-arbitraria-de-los-estudiantes-noel-cisneros-katiuska-castillo-vasquez-ingrid-bricenno-venegas-y-marcela-hernandez-guerra
https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Centenares-de-firmas-por-la-liberacion-de-documentalistas-y-tesistas-de-la-UCV