Popular Opposition Leader has been arrested.
NewsOnline Nigeria reports that Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been arrested after re-appearing in public for the first time in months a day before the third inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro.
A social media account for Comando Con Venezuela, the political opposition group Machado leads, reported the arrest on Thursday.
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“María Corina Machado was violently intercepted while leaving the gathering in Chacao,” the opposition group wrote, adding that government forces “fired” at the motorcycles that were transporting her.
It has since announced Machado’s release, dismissing reports that the brief detention was false.
Maduro’s government quickly denounced the incident as an effort to dent the administration’s reputation.
“The tactic of media distraction is not new, so no one should be surprised. Less so coming from fascists who are the architects of deception,” Information Minister Freddy Nanez said on social media platform Telegram after the reports of Machado’s arrest emerged.
⚠️⚠️⚠️ María Corina (@MariaCorinaYA) fue violentamente interceptada a su salida de la concentración en Chacao.
Esperamos confirmar en minutos su situación.
Efectivos del régimen dispararon contra las motos que la trasladaban.
— Comando ConVzla (@ConVzlaComando) January 9, 2025
Machado has been in hiding in recent months, following a government crackdown on dissent in the wake of the contested July 28 presidential election.
But she made a public appearance on Thursday, after calling on supporters to protest in a last-ditch attempt to block Venezuela’s President Maduro from clinging to power. He is set to be sworn in for another six-year term on Friday.
“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united,” Machado, waving a Venezuelan flag, shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck before her arrest.
Demonstrators at the rally chanted, “We are not afraid! We are not afraid!” Many also sang the Venezuelan national anthem as a mark of defiance against Maduro’s government.
Waves of antigovernment protests broke out following the July 28 election, when the electoral authority declared Maduro the winner without releasing the usual breakdown of voting tallies.
The opposition called the result fraudulent and has instead published its own copies of the voting tallies online. It says that documentation proves its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, is the rightful winner.
The Maduro government has responded to the outcry with what critics have denounced as heavy-handed repression. More than 2,000 people were arrested and an estimated 25 people were killed in the post-election crackdown.
Maduro has also accused Machado of leading a conspiracy to topple him. In September, a court also issued a warrant for Gonzalez’s arrest.
‘There’s fear’
Reporting from an anti-Maduro protest in neighbouring Colombia on Thursday afternoon, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti said Machado defied previous threats and attempts to detain her.
“The government has repeatedly promised that they would arrest her if she tried to show up at one of these protests,” Rampietti said. He added that Machado had been in hiding since August after the Maduro government began its crackdown on opposition figures and protesters.
“She said that she expected today’s protest to be historic and a way to show the world that the majority of Venezuelans want a democratic transition in the country,” Rampietti reported.
But there was a relatively small turnout for Thursday’s protests as riot police were deployed in force.
“Of course, there’s fewer people,” Miguel Contrera, an empanada vendor, told The Associated Press as National Guard soldiers carrying riot shields buzzed by on motorcycles. “There’s fear.”
Gonzalez himself fled to Spain in September to seek political asylum. But he has since returned to the Americas, where he has been touring countries such as Argentina, Uruguay and the United States to bolster his claim to victory.
He has also pledged to return to Venezuela. Maduro’s government announced a $100,000 reward for information on Gonzalez’s whereabouts in the lead-up to the inauguration.
On Thursday, Gonzalez lent his voice to the calls for Machado’s freedom.
“As president-elect, I demand the immediate release of María Corina Machado,” he wrote on social media. “To the security forces that kidnapped her, I say: Do not play with fire.”
