Venezuelan journalist detained for 13 days released after publishing coronavirus figures

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Venezuelans who will be in quarantine buy food 0:39

(CNN Spanish) - Venezuelan journalist Darvinson Rojas was released this Thursday after being detained on March 21 by law enforcement officials without the judicial authorities having specified, so far, the official reason for his arrest.

“Today the court had an office and the release card came out. The officials brought me to the house, ”Rojas told CNN in a telephone conversation.

The journalist's arrest occurred at his home in western Caracas. At the time of the arrest, he was with his parents, who were also taken away, although only for a few hours.

"In principle, they told us that it was because of tweets that he had placed on the coronavirus in the Miranda state, that how he had had that information," Mirian Sánchez, the journalist's mother, told CNN.

The communicator stated that he was charged with crimes of "instigation of hatred and public instigation".

• Venezuela's doctors fear the worst as the coronavirus pandemic approaches

View this post on Instagram

On freedom.

A post shared by Darvinson Rojas (@darvinsonrojas) on Apr 2, 2020 at 8:32 pm PDT

CNN contacted the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office on Friday to find out the charges and has yet to receive a response.

On Thursday they claimed to have no public information about it. We also contacted that entity when his arrest was first reported.

Rojas explained that his arrest occurred after publishing a tweet with figures of infections by coronavirus in Venezuela that had not been reported by the central government, but by regional authorities, something that is not expressly prohibited.

"What the prosecution alleged was that it had issued false information to generate destabilization," he maintains.

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The government of the questioned President Nicolás Maduro reported on Thursday that there are already 146 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5 deaths.

The communicator said that he will be able to continue exercising his functions since he has no restrictions on the use of social networks or public statements. However, it is waiting for a possible payment of bail to the State as part of the judicial process.

"The problem I have right now is that all my equipment was taken away and it remains as evidence (...) at least until the investigation ends," he explained. The communicator asserts that during the detention, which lasted for 13 days, he received no ill-treatment.

The case led to the condemnation of international organizations, including Amnesty International (AI), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which demanded that the Venezuelan state release the journalist immediately.

coronavirus