(9 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++UPDATES HEADLINE AND STORYLINE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Caracas, Venezuela – 09 January 2025
1. Various of Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan Opposition Leader, standing atop car and waving Venezuelan flag, people rallying around her
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan Opposition Leader:
"Whatever they do tomorrow it will seal the fate of the regime. If they commit that crime against the constitution and the people’s sovereignty, they will seal their destiny."
3. Various of people, some dressed in the Venezuelan national colors, raise their hands and chant (Spanish) "We are not afraid."
4. Machado rallying her supporters UPSOUND (Spanish)
"Now it comes the good part; now we will show what the brave people are made of."
5. People chanting
6. Machado speaking
7. Machado holding sign reading (Spanish) "Free all the political detainees."
8. Woman crying during rally, in backgrounds other chant (Spanish) "Freedom."
STORYLINE:
Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado’, waving a Venezuelan flag, shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck in the capital on Thursday.
“We are not afraid!, We are not afraid!” shouted demonstrators who sang the Venezuelan national anthem to herald Machado’s defiance of President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado’s aides said she was detained Thursday, followed moments later by official denials of her arrest, in a confusing episode that capped a day of protests seeking to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.
It remained unclear what exactly happened after Machado bid farewell to hundreds of supporters, hopped on a motorcycle and raced with her security convoy down a main Caracas avenue.
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 told The Associated Press that she had been detained, and international condemnation poured in from leaders in Latin America and beyond, demanding her release.
But about an hour later, a proof-of-life, 20-second video of Machado emerged online in which she says she was followed after leaving the “wonderful” rally and had dropped her purse.
Her aides later claimed in a social media post that the video message had been coerced, and that after recording it, she was freed. They said she would provide details of her “kidnapping” later.
In recent years, the word kidnapping has been associated with the government practice of detaining real or perceived opponents without following the law. It’s seen as part of a campaign to repress anti-government protests that broke out after the election results were announced.
Late Thursday, Machado in a post on X said she was “in a safe place and with more determination than ever” to continue her effort to get Maduro out of office. She also said that a person was shot "when the repressive forces of the regime arrested me.”
The Associated Press was unable to contact Machado for clarification of her statement. She told supporters she would explain the day’s events in more detail on Friday.
Meanwhile, Maduro’s supporters denied Machado had been detained, claiming that government opponents were trying to spread fake news to generate an international crisis.
The protests are taking place a day before the ruling party-controlled National Assembly is scheduled to swear in Maduro to a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost the presidential election.
There was a relatively small turnout for Thursday’s protests as riot police were deployed in force.
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