Chavismo tightens the siege against María Corina Machado with the arrest of its 'number two' and a leader of its party

Chavismo tightens the siege against María Corina Machado with just over four months left until the July 28 elections.

The intelligence service of Nicolás Maduro's government, Sebin, arrested this Wednesday Henri Alviárez, a close collaborator of the presidential candidate and

in his party, Vente Venezuela, and Dignora Hernández, general secretary of the organization.

Authorities have also issued arrest warrants for seven prominent members of his team.

In a video recorded in broad daylight, the screams of a woman can be heard asking for help.

She is being shoved into a van.

The recording, which has spread like wildfire on social networks, is the latest example of the onslaught of the government apparatus against the opposition.

The members of the team are Oswaldo Bracho, Omar González Moreno, Humberto Villalobos, Fernando Martínez Mottola and Magalli Meda, who appeared as an alternative candidate given the disqualification that weighs on Machado.

Pedro Urruchurtu, his personal assistant, and Claudia Macero, in charge of communications, had already been identified weeks before as part of the investigations into an alleged coup plot with which Chavismo has started a new repressive wave.

Six regional campaign managers of the candidate are already in jail.

The Public Ministry links Hernández and Alviárez to alleged destabilizing plans through “simultaneous attacks” on military installations and street actions.

The ghost of the plot is the flag with which Maduro has removed dissidence from his government.

Police and intelligence service operations have left an extensive file of arbitrary detentions, disappearances and arrests for political motivations documented in United Nations reports and for which the International Criminal Court is investigating the commission of crimes against humanity in the country.

Between 2019 and 2022, those around Juan Guaidó, then leader of the opposition, were targets of the same type of persecution.

After an apparent willingness to negotiate after agreements with the United States that led to the easing of oil sanctions in exchange for some concessions and democratic guarantees, Maduro has entrenched himself again to pave the way for the elections.

Last Saturday, he was anointed by his party as a candidate, despite having the worst levels of popularity, and has intensified the attack against his opponent, chosen in primaries last October, with more than two million votes and a mobilization that It dislocated Chavismo, according to opposition data.

This year 2024 began with the denunciation of five alleged conspiracies to assassinate Maduro, which the justice system has used to persecute members of political parties, journalists and human rights defenders such as the lawyer Rocío San Miguel, who has been in prison for almost two months without that he has been able to receive the assistance of his lawyers.

The first months of the year have represented a peak in the repression of recent years, to which is added the approval of legislative frameworks such as the law against hate, after which people have been arrested for simply expressing criticism of the Government on social networks. , and the law to supervise the work of NGOs, which have assumed assistance to the population in the midst of the humanitarian crisis and the defense of victims of human rights violations.

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