Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras denounced this Wednesday that officials at the Maiquetía international airport They prevented him from boarding a flight to Spain and threatened to arrest him when he tried to photograph the documents that were intended to justify the measure.
The episode, recounted by Porras himself in a statement addressed to the bishops of Venezuela, occurred in the middle of International Human Rights Day.
He explained that He was preparing to travel to Madrid to fulfill ecclesiastical commitments this weekend and next, with a scheduled return to Venezuela for December 21.
However, upon arriving at immigration control, an official warned him that he had to “check” if his passport was in order. Minutes later, they informed him that the document “presented problems,” that the airport staff could not resolve the situation and that he should go to the Saime headquarters in Caracas.
The cardinal requested the return of the passport to collect his luggage, but assured that The officials refused to hand it over. A soldier, he said, escorted him the entire time, even to the bathroom, asking him why he was going to that place.
“Even when I went to the bathroom, the official followed me closely,” Porras wrote in his message.
Threat of arrest when trying to photograph the documents
The prelate was later taken to another area of the airport, where he was required to sign documents in which It was stated that he could not travel due to “non-compliance with travel regulations.”
Porras stated that when he tried to take a photograph of the document, he was intimidated.
“They didn’t allow me to take the photo and not in a very good way. If I insisted, they threatened to detain me,” he explained.
Despite repeatedly asking for his passport, he only received his boarding pass to claim the suitcase. After recovering the luggage with the help of airline staff, he returned to Caracas.
“It is striking that this type of thing happens, that there is no freedom for one as a citizen to move from one place to another and with a military deployment that “It seems like we were plotting who knows what,” expressed in a video.
