 On 7 March 2015, Padrino López later announced that the Venezuelan government was expanding on Resolution 8610 to give more detailed explanations and that the decree "should be regulated and reviewed".In an op-ed for "The New York Times" titled “Venezuela’s Failing State," Lopez lamented “from the Ramo Verde military prison outside Caracas" that for the past fifteen years, “the definition of ‘intolerable’ in this country has declined by degrees until, to our dismay, we found ourselves with one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere, a 57 percent inflation rate and a scarcity of basic goods unprecedented outside of wartime.” The economic devastation, he added, “is matched by an equally oppressive political climate.Since student protests began on Feb. 4, more than 1,500 protesters have been detained, more than 30 have been killed, and more than 50 people have reported that they were tortured while in police custody,” thus exposing “the depth of this government's criminalization of dissent.”
Addressing his incarceration, López recounted that on 12 February, he had “urged Venezuelans to exercise their legal rights to protest and free speech – but to do so peacefully and without violence.