\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez has ordered police to \u201cimmediately\u201d arrest anyone who shows support for the United States military operation carried out on Saturday that ended with the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and an estimated death toll of 80.<\/p>\n
The measure is included in a decree ordering a state of \u201cexternal commotion,\u201d a legal tool granting her full power over the country\u2019s political, economic, and social situation for 90 days, with the possibility of extending it for an additional 90 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decree was published in Venezuela\u2019s Official Gazette on Monday but dated January 3, the day of the U.S. attack. This is the first time the government has used this disposition since it was created in 1999.<\/p>\n
The document also details measures to repel the foreign military incursion, including the deployment of the national armed forces across the country and the reinforcement of border security.<\/p>\n
Human rights concerns Human rights organizations expressed concern over the decree, especially the article explicitly ordering the capture of those who backed the U.S. operation. Initial estimates say that dozens of people have already been arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, the police of Merida \u2014 a city 600 km away from Caracas \u2014 announced they had detained two middle-aged men who were \u201ccelebrating the kidnapping\u201d of Maduro. The officers made the arrest after responding to an anonymous call saying the men were yelling, \u201cinciting violence,\u201d and firing guns.<\/p>\n
According to Venezuelan attorney Gonzalo Himiob, the article is \u201cvery dangerous\u201d because it allows for \u201ca subjective interpretation of what can be considered support or not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis opens the door to abuse, because it\u2019s up to the officials to determine who ends up in jail and who doesn\u2019t, without further regulation,\u201d said Himiob, who is vice president of Foro Penal, an NGO defending the human rights of political prisoners and people who were arbitrarily arrested.<\/p>\n
He also warned about how the decree gives \u201cvery broad powers to the government to control the citizenship.\u201d This includes the potential seizure of goods necessary for the defense of the nation, without providing details on how this would happen or what would happen to the goods afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This, Himiob told the Herald, could lead to \u201cserious violations of property rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is also concern regarding an article ordering residents to actively cooperate with authorities in national defense tasks but not providing any details of how this would work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decree also restricts or closes border crossings and suspends the right to gatherings and public demonstrations.<\/p>\n
As of December 29, Foro Penal had registered 863 political prisoners. Included in this total are three Argentines and one Argentine-Venezuelan. One of them is military police officer Nahuel Gallo, who was arrested in December 2024 after being accused of being part of an alleged plot against Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Journalists arrested On Monday, 14 journalists \u2014 one local and the rest from international outlets \u2014 were arrested while covering the National Assembly session where new lawmakers were sworn in and Delcy Rodr\u00edguez formally became \u201cacting president.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The arrests happened inside the parliament, on the premises of the building, and in the nearby area of Altamira.<\/p>\n
In addition, two other journalists were arrested on the Colombian border. One of them is from Spain, and the other is Colombian. They were released hours later and are currently in Colombia.<\/p>\n
The union said the arrests were \u201calarming\u201d and called for \u201csafeguards\u201d to continue carrying out their work as journalists, as well as \u201can end to persecution\u201d and freedom for 23 press workers who continue under arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez has ordered police to \u201cimmediately\u201d arrest anyone who shows support for the United States military operation carried out on Saturday that ended with the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and an estimated death toll of 80. The measure is included in a decree ordering a state of \u201cexternal commotion,\u201d a legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":23727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,54,332,306],"tags":[6970,183,3298,904],"class_list":["post-23726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-delcy-rodriguez","category-latin-america","category-venezuela","category-world","tag-delcy-rodriguez","tag-latin-america","tag-venezuela","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}