August 17, 2024, 8:41 PM
August 17, 2024, 8:41 PM
They were arrested in Venezuela in separate incidents that the opposition and human rights organizations denounced on Saturday as “repression” of any questioning of the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro.
Piero Maroún, leader of the historic social-democratic party Acción Democrática, “was with his wife and sister-in-law in a restaurant at 10:20 pm (on Friday) when he was detained by three unidentified people,” wrote opposition leader María Corina Machado in X, without detailing where his arrest occurred.
Carlos Molina, from the Un Nuevo Tiempo party, was arrested after taking part in a rally in the city of Valencia (north-central Spain). “Repressive forces pulled him out of a van,” said Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela.
NGOs and activists are denouncing a wave of “repression” following the official results of the July 28 elections, in which Maduro was proclaimed re-elected for a third six-year term, until 2031. The opposition, for its part, is claiming the victory of Edmundo González Urrutia, representative of the disqualified leader María Corina Machado.
Priest Elvis Cabarca was arrested by the Bolivarian National Guard, a military body with law enforcement functions, while he was praying a rosary in a chapel on August 17 amid protests.
“The father boarded a van and the GNB took him away in a tow truck,” the human rights NGO Provea reported in X.
In Puerto Ayacucho, in the southern state of Amazonas, “the arrest of human rights lawyer Henry Alexander Gómez Fernández was also recorded. He was reportedly arrested with other people whose identities we are confirming,” said the lawyer of Gonzalo Himiob of the NGO Foro Penal.
“They will not be able to hide with their repression what everyone knows (…) Freedom for all kidnapped and political prisoners,” continued Machado, who denounces fraud and says he has the evidence to prove it.
Protests that erupted after the election results were announced in July left 25 dead and more than 2,400 people arrested, branded by Maduro as “terrorists.”
