Chavismo shows its most repressive face with the presidential elections on the horizon

Some Venezuelan news portals have documented the arrest of Carlos Salazar Lárez, an engineer and civil activist who a few days ago had remotely recorded businessman Alex Saab, a businessman member of the high government, shopping on Margarita Island.

His intention was to upload the video to social networks.

Until now, nothing more has been known about Salazar Lárez.

His relatives are waiting for a response from the authorities so that he can be presented in court.

His case partially resembles that of Víctor Venegas, a teacher leader who organized protests demanding better salaries in the city of Barinas, taken to prison on charges of terrorism.

Or that of John Alvarez, an anthropology student, detained by the political police, who reported torture during interrogations.

Or that of the six union members who organized protests in the health workers sector demanding better salaries, sentenced to 16 years in prison on accusations of treason, all subsequently released, along with Alvarez, in the frame of the

revolving door

of Barbados.

Or that of Nelson Piñero, a political activist prosecuted, accused of violating the Law against Hate on social networks.

The imprisonment in the El Helicoide prison of Rocío San Miguel, a highly respected public spokesperson in Venezuela, an analyst par excellence of the country's military reality, has displayed a visible state of prevention and has caused genuine stupor in the public debate. local, already sufficiently restrained and censored.

San Miguel was detained at the Maiquetía airport at five in the morning, when she was preparing to leave for a trip to Miami, accompanied by her daughter Miranda, also detained.

The authorities reported that she was named in interrogations by imprisoned officers in an alleged coup plot that was revealed.

On January 22, the Attorney General's Office had announced the arrest of 32 people, "civilian and military", accused of organizing a conspiracy to depose or assassinate the president, Nicolás Maduro.

The arrest warrants included people like the journalist Sabastiana Barráez, specialized in military sources, and the lawyer and human rights defender, Tamara Sujú, both in exile.

The attorney general of the Chavista regime, Tarek William Saab, announced that the presentation hearing was finally held against the six citizens allegedly involved in operation

Brazalete Blanco

, which includes San Miguel and his relatives, the conspiratorial plot denounced by Chavismo. two weeks ago, shortly after the Barbados Accords were signed and the release of businessman Alex Saab.

“In said hearing, the prosecutors of the Public Ministry requested a measure of deprivation of liberty against the citizen Rocío San Miguel for the alleged commission of the crimes of Treason to the Homeland, Conspiracy, Association to Crime and Terrorism,” Saab reported in a statement. .

The Prosecutor's Office also requested preventive deprivation of liberty for retired military officer Alejandro Gonzales De Canales, San Miguel's ex-partner, for the “alleged commission of the crimes of revelation of political and military secrets concerning the security of the nation, obstruction of the administration of Justice and association.

Saab reported that the Prosecutor's Office asked the courts for “precautionary measures, consisting of periodic presentation to the courts,” of the other four detainees, relatives of San Miguel, including his daughter and two of his brothers, all of whom, according to agreements the defense of San Miguel, were forcibly disappeared, with their whereabouts unknown within a period of 72 hours.

“Prognosis in Venezuela: from brown to dark,” comments the historian, writer and academic Elías Pinto Iturrieta in a sharp tweet, an influential voice in the country, when gauging the current political situation.

The judicialization of the brothers and relatives of San Miguel has expanded fear in the national social body, and the prevention, if not mimesis, of many social actors in the democratic field.

As it loses popularity, the Venezuelan Government has come to consider any civic procedure to come to power by its adversaries hostile.

The political success of the opposition's primary consultation, on October 22, was not only unknown, but one of its organizers, Roberto Abdul, from Súmate, was judicially accused.

A few days ago, in the town of Charallave, half an hour from Caracas, squads of Chavista militants again attacked María Corina Machado's proselytizing commandos, seriously injuring six of them.

Such a procedure is protected by Bolivarian Fury, a slogan that represents the maximum state of alert in the times of Nicolás Maduro, invoked when the presence in power is in danger.

Furthermore, the Chavista revolutionary state has begun to explore hostile judicial norms, such as prosecuting relatives of political adversaries.

For its part, the Civic Forum, a civil and political rights NGO, also expressed “its repudiation of the forced disappearance and arbitrary detention of Rocío San Miguel, a reference in the field of the defense of human rights in Venezuela.”

By denouncing “a fierce campaign from abroad against the justice system and the Venezuelan state,” and considering that the investigation into San Miguel has been carried out “within the corresponding legal periods and in strict adherence to respect for human rights and constitutional guarantees”, the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, pointed out that “those voices that seek to endorse the crimes and attacks against the people and the Venezuelan nation have been and will be defeated again by the peaceful and democratic convictions of the majority of the country” .

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