“Leopoldo López will remain in prison because he is a murderer,” Diosdado Cabello, the second most powerful socialist in Venezuela, said amid laughs on his television show on Saturday, referring to an opposition leader who counted his 1,000th day in prison on Sunday.
Rosmit Mantilla, an LGBT activist and elected lawmaker for Venezuela’s western Táchira state, marked his second year imprisoned in a secret police facility after being arrested for alleged illicit activity against the socialist regime. He has still not been convicted of any crime.
In a series of tweets, the wife of Venezuelan political prisoner Leopoldo López has accused prison guards of forcing her to disrobe and “open my legs various times,” while doing the same to her mother-in-law, in front of the couple’s young children.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri has electrified a Mercosur trade bloc summit with the demand that Venezuela release its dozens of political prisoners or face sanctions from the group.
The Venezuelan socialist party, which has ruled the nation for 16 years, is still reeling from its decisive loss in the December 6 legislative elections, with the nation’s highest-ranking politicians threatening voters who oppose socialism that poverty and sickness are now on the horizon.
The anti-socialist Venezuelan opposition has cemented a majority hold on the National Assembly following national elections on Sunday night. While the government has officially accepted the results of the election, many still fear oppression and violence in response to the overwhelming rejection of Chavismo displayed in the polls.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro referred to an opposition leader, shot to death in public on Wednesday, as a “gang leader” (“pran”) with a history of “homicide” and “general delinquency,” while on a television program Sunday.
The Venezuelan government has accused Argentine President-Elect Mauricio Macri of “taking orders from the United States” following the conservative head of state to-be’s proposal to sanction Venezuela economically over human rights abuses against political dissidents.
Franklin Nieves, the prosecutor responsible for securing a conviction and 13-year prison sentence for Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López, has defected to the United States and confessed that the evidence he brought to the trial was “100% false.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro warned viewers on Sunday that he expects December’s legislative elections to be the “most difficult yet” for the socialist Chavistas. Maduro, who barely scraped a victory against opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski in 2013, also accused the United States of “conspiracy” against him.
The leader of Venezuela’s largest opposition party, Popular Will, has been found guilty of organizing protests against the socialist government. Leopoldo López has been condemned to serve 13 years and 9 months in prison.
An NGO operating in Venezuela has published videos of starved prisoners in the socialist nation killing, skinning, and cooking cats on aluminum pans in order to survive, as wardens have forbidden families from bringing food and serve only a small cup of rice and water per day.
Following news of reconciliation with the Cuban communist regime, Reuters is reporting that the Obama administration has been engaging in secret diplomacy with the dictatorship currently governing Venezuela, hoping to reestablish ties with socialist President Nicolás Maduro and negotiate the freedom of political prisoner Leopoldo López.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, facing a tidal wave of international criticism over human rights violations and hunger strikes by his nation’s most famous prisoners of conscience, canceled a visit to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. Both dissidents and Vatican sources have told multiple Spanish newspapers that the cancelation, ostensibly due to a “cold,” actually occurred out of fear of being embarrassed on a public stage.
14-year-old Kluiverth Roa was shot in the head on Tuesday on his way home from school in San Cristóbal, Venezuela. Roa’s way home from school required him to pass through an anti-socialist protest; he was stopped by police almost immediately and shot in the head after witnesses say he yelled “stop the repression!”
The attorney working for Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma has told a Venezuelan publication that his client was implicated in an alleged coup plot by a soldier who had been tortured into incriminating enemies of the state. Ledezma was arrested last week in a Secret Police raid of his office.
Following the shocking images of Venezuelan secret service (Sebin) agents storming the office of Antonio Ledezma, Mayor of Caracas, the Socialist national guard has heightened its surveillance of journalists, cameramen, and even bystanders with recording equipment to prevent further compromising images from being shared on social media.
Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of Caracas, Venezuela, was arrested in a siege of his office yesterday without a warrant and for unspecified “conspiracy” charges. His arrest occurs the day after Popular Will Party opposition leader Leopoldo López’s one-year anniversary behind bars, also for posing an unspecified criminal threat to the nation.
One year ago today, the Venezuelan government arrested Popular Will party leader Leopoldo López for organizing a protest against the government’s socialist policies. He remains in prison, and his wife, Lilian Tintori, has organized a protest of thousands in the very Caracas square where he was arrested, as reports surface that he has been moved into an isolation ward.
The Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela attacked a group of student protestors with tear gas in San Cristóbal, Táchira, a western regional capital that has become the center of revolt against that nation’s socialist government.
With the anniversary of the arrest of opposition party leader Leopoldo López approaching, the Venezuelan government has approved new legislation which would allow the Bolivarian National Guard to use “potentially lethal force” against protesters calling for the fully free exercise of the freedoms of expression and assembly.
