Venezuela opposition leader arrested then freed after protest rally
Venezuela’s opposition claims its leader, María Corina Machado, was briefly arrested and later released after addressing a protest rally on the eve of President Nicolás Maduro’s contentious inauguration.
According to the opposition, the 57-year-old Machado was “violently intercepted” in eastern Caracas, where gunfire targeted the motorcycle convoy she was traveling in. While detained, she was reportedly forced to record several videos.
Venezuela’s Information Minister, Freddy Ñáñez, dismissed reports of Machado’s detention, calling them a “media distraction.”
Maduro, 62, was declared the winner of last July’s presidential election, a result rejected as fraudulent by the opposition and several countries, including the United States, which instead recognize exiled opposition candidate Edmundo González as the legitimate president-elect.
González fled to Spain in September but has recently embarked on a tour of the Americas to garner international support. In response, the Maduro government has issued an arrest warrant for González, offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture.
Machado, who was barred from running in the election and replaced by González on the ballot, has also faced government targeting. After the disputed election, she went into hiding and was last seen publicly in August before resurfacing at Thursday’s rally.
Earlier in the day, the UN expressed its alarm after it received reports of arbitrary detentions and intimidation in Venezuela ahead of the opposition marches.
It highlighted the arrest of Carlos Correa, the head of an NGO promoting press freedom, who was seized by unidentified hooded men earlier in the week.
Maduro’s government has deployed thousands of police officers in Caracas, where the government-allied National Assembly plans to swear Maduro in for a third term in office.
The opposition for its part urged its supporters to turn out in droves in an effort to thwart the ceremony.
In the city of Valencia, police fired tear gas at protesters, according to Reuters.
In western Caracas, 70-year-old Niegalos Payares told the news agency that “I’m not afraid, I lost my fear a long time ago”.
And in the city of Maracay, in central Venezuela, Roisa Gómez told a Reuters reporter that she was “fighting for my vote, which I cast for Edmundo González. They cannot steal the election.”
Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential election by the government-dominated National Electoral Council (CNE) but the CNE has to this day failed to provide detailed voting data to back up this claim.
Earlier this month in Washington, González met US President Joe Biden, who said that Venezuela deserved a “peaceful transfer of power”.
In Panama, González deposited thousands of voting tallies which the opposition collected in the country’s bank for safekeeping.
The tallies have been the key evidence offered by the opposition to show that González, not Maduro won the election.
With the help of official election witnesses, they managed to collect 85% of the tallies and uploaded them to the internet.
Independent observers and media organisations which reviewed them say they show González beat Maduro by a landslide.
