Penal Forum) is a Venezuelan human rights organization that provides legal assistance pro bono to people subject of arbitrary detentions and their relatives.

The organization is composed of regional coordinators for each state in Venezuela, pro bono lawyers on a national level and a network of over five thousand volunteers, non-lawyer activists, known as "active defensors".

[1][2] Foro Penal is constituted as a civil association composed of regional coordinators for each state in Venezuela, pro bono lawyers on a national level and a network of over five thousand volunteers, non-lawyer activists, known as "active defensors".

[4][5][6] Lawyers Alfredo Romero and Gonzalo Himiob founded the non-governmental organization Víctimas Venezolanas de Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos (VIVE) as a response to human rights violations that occurred after the Llaguno Overpass events in Caracas on 11 April, 2002.

[23][24] In 2017, Foro Penal published a joint report with Human Rights Watch documenting arbitrary detentions, torture, and excessive use of force during the 2017 Venezuelan protests.

The analysis concluded that the average disappearance lasted five days, suggesting that the government wanted to avoid the scrutiny that could come with large-scale, long-term detentions.

[35] Alfredo Romero has been criminalized several times by state officials and in media programs, particularly in Diosdado Cabello's Con El Mazo Dando, has received death threats, has been harassed in national airports and has denounced the intervention of Foro Penal's communications without a warrant.

[36] During a 2017 interview by Spanish journalist Jordi Évole [es] in the program Salvados, Nicolás Maduro accused Foro Penal of being financed by the United States, as well as other organizations such as Transparency International and Caritas, and of being "directed by delinquents".