Dozens of people arrested for “terrorist” actions in recent hours, says Maduro

Dozens of people have been arrested in recent hours for their participation in “criminal” and “terrorist” actions in Venezuela, following the presidential elections on July 28, Nicolás Maduro announced on Monday, blaming the opposition for these events.

“We have witnessed a series of events (…) violent attacks, one could call them criminal, terrorist (…) several dozen of these people have been captured in flagrante delicto,” said Maduro, who was proclaimed re-elected president on Monday by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

Maduro said that 80% of those captured “have criminal records” and some of them – he said – returned to the country on deportation flights from the United States, but he did not provide their identities or offer further details.

In addition, he continued, almost 90% “have two characteristics: they are in an advanced state of drug addiction and they are armed.”

“I call for the most powerful reaction of repudiation of these criminal acts, carried out by criminals from the commandos,” said Maduro, in reference to the groups of citizens related to the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), a sector that he accused of having a plan to “destabilize Venezuela again.”

Among the actions reported by Maduro were attacks on “a hundred” of the more than 15,000 voting centers set up for the elections, destruction of “electoral materials,” burning of “city halls” and attacks on members of the National Armed Forces and agents of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), complaints that the authorities did not make on Sunday, the day of the elections, when they assured that the day had passed without incident.

According to the government, at least 23 soldiers have been injured, “some with firearms, victims of the violent acts” this Monday, when thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas and several regions of the country to protest, actions that, in several of them, were repressed by the military and police.

The EFE news agency confirmed that members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB, militarized police) and the Bolivarian National Police used tear gas and fired pellets against protesters who were peacefully demonstrating in an area of ​​Caracas until the arrival of the officers, and arrested about twenty of them.

During the day, at least four statues of the late President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) were torn down by protesters, rejecting the official election results provided by the National Electoral Council (CNE), according to which Maduro obtained 51.2% of the votes and the PUD candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, 44.2%, data widely questioned by the opposition coalition and a large part of the international community.