Venezuela's Anti-Maduro Protests, Week 6: No One to Depend On By Carlos Camacho Latin American Herald Tribune May 13, 2017
CARACAS -- The increasingly embattled administration of Nicolas Maduro is taking unprecedented steps in the repression of political protests, including attacking demonstrations before they start, arresting those visiting demonstrators wounded in protests as well as harassing those bringing food, or even visiting, political prisoners.
“The military and the colectivos (pro-government gangs enlisted in repression efforts) want to kick me out of the hospital, but I won’t leave my son alone,” Jose Ibarra, father of Jesus Ibarra, told the Latin American Herald Tribune. “The colectivos tell me they don’t want me talking to the press, but I no longer care,” the older Ibarra says, adding that Jesus (an engineering student) is doing much better, after a tear-gas grenade struck him in the head a week ago, pushing him into the Guaire river, one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the hemisphere.
This is Venezuela, after 6 weeks of violent anti-government protests, which have caused 39 fatalities amongst demonstrators and security forces, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office last published figures. NGOs and LAHT however estimate that the deaths could be as high as 50.
Harassment in the hospital comes and goes, Ibarra said, matter of factly. One day, he tells the reporter, the military even ordered the colectivos out of the facility. But it never entirely goes away.
“Now that, with donations, we can move Jesus to a private clinic, the hospital authorities are not letting us do that,” he said Friday afternoon.
And Ibarra’s is hardly the only tale of increased repression.
BEFORE THE FACT
Journalist Sergio Contreras was arrested by National Police Wednesday.
His crime?
Using a bullhorn to ask that the day’s demonstration not be tear-gassed.
The march was teargassed and Contreras was arrested. He was sent to Ramo Verde, the infamous military prison where opposition activist and “cause celebre” Leopoldo Lopez is serving a 14 year sentence (most of it in solitary) for “subliminally” rallying crowds against Maduro.
National Police said Contreras was carrying a .38 revolver, however, cops didn’t display captured weaponry in any of the myriad videos of the journalists’ arrest available on social media.
Contreras is known to other journalists as the chief media person in the office of opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara, the first vice-president of the opposition-held National Assembly legislative. Contreras is also a professor of journalism at the Catholic University.
Local media carries the story of Lisbeth Añez, an opposition activist that first gained notice during the 2014 protests.
Añez was visiting and providing food for some of the demonstrators arrested in the recent protests when she was herself arrested, charged with rebellion and “treason to the fatherland” and remanded to the national intelligence service’s Sebin “El Helicoide” prison, which is located inside one of the most dangerous slums in the planet.
More than 1,700 Venezuelans have been arrested since the week of April 1. And the Attorney General warns that dozens have been detained unlawfully, sometimes without even an arrest report.
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