(9 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Caracas, Venezuela – 09 January 2025
1. Various of government supporters marching
2. Various of ruling party Vice president Diosdado Cabello at rally
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Diosdado Cabello, Interior Minister
“The disaster of their rally, they tried to cover it up with a big lie. With a false positive. Immediately they let it spread through the lying social media: the sayona (as the mockingly call Machado referring to a character of popular Venezuelan terror tale) was kidnapped, Maria Corina Machado was arrested. And immediately communiqués from countries, communiqués from former presidents, from political organizations ‘we reject the detention of Maria Corina, we demand her freedom’ and that lady was getting some air in her house since early in the day”.
4. Cabello at rally
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Diosdado Cabello, Interior Minister
“Look, I guarantee you that if the decision was to detain her, she would already be detained. But she was begging (to be detained) and all this information came from outside without any reason. Because they had already put together the news, so you can see how they work, with lies. They did not move people and they needed a spark and they said the best spark is to say that Maria Corina Machado was detained”.
6. Various of police in the streets
7. Various of government supporters in motorbikes
STORYLINE:
Aides to Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said she was detained Thursday, followed moments later by official denials, in a confusing episode that capped a day of protests seeking to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.
It’s not clear exactly what transpired after Machado bid farewell to hundreds of supporters, hopped on a motorcycle and raced with her security convoy through the empty streets of eastern Caracas to an undisclosed location.
At 3:21 p.m. local time, Machado’s press team said in a social media post that security forces “violently intercepted” her convoy.
Her aides later confirmed to The Associated Press that the opposition hardliner had been detained, and international condemnation immediately poured from leaders in Latin America and beyond demanding her release.
But about an hour later, a 20-second video of Machado was posted online by a Maduro supporter in which the opposition leader said she was followed after leaving the rally and that she had dropped her purse. “I’m good, I’m safe,” Machado said in a raspy voice, adding “Venezuela will be free.”
Her aides later said in a social media post that the proof-of-of-life video message had been coerced and that after recording it she was freed. They said she would provide details of her “kidnapping” later.
Meanwhile, Maduro supporters denied that she was detained and gloated that government opponents were trying to spread fake news to generate an international crisis.
The Venezuelan Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, denies that official forces detained the opposition María Corina Machado and maintains that if the decision had been to arrest her, they would have done so.
Cabellos says the opposition invented the news of Machado’s arrest to “cover up the disaster of the rally” they held, in reference to what he considered a low turnout of participants on the day of protests. The Minister pronounced himself in these terms before a crowd that marched 14 kilometers to express its support to Maduro.
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