Chavista authorities arrested Milciades Ávila, the chief of bodyguards for opposition leader María Corina Machado, in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Ávila was sleeping at home when the officers entered the door, according to Machado’s campaign command, which in this electoral campaign, leading up to the presidential elections on July 28, has extended its full support to Edmundo González, whom Chavismo has allowed to participate as a candidate.
Ávila, a former police officer, has been working for Machado for 10 years and now serves as the head of his protection unit. “Ávila has accompanied me around the country and has risked his life to defend me. This morning he was kidnapped by the regime accused of gender violence against some women who last Saturday tried to attack Edmundo and me in La Encrucijada,” explained the opposition member in X.
For Machado, this group of women had prepared a strategy to get her team into trouble: “There are dozens of witnesses and videos that show that this act was a planned provocation to leave us without protection 11 days before July 28. I am issuing an ALERT to the world about Maduro’s escalation of repression against those who work in the Campaign or help us anywhere in the country. Maduro has made violence and repression his campaign.” The opposition leader, who swept the anti-Chavez primaries held last year with more than 90% of the votes, held Maduro responsible for “the physical integrity of Milciades Ávila and the other 24 people from our teams who were kidnapped and are now prisoners of the tyranny.”
The arrests of secondary actors in the campaign have occurred throughout the electoral process. The NGO Foro Penal has counted 102 arrests of citizens who have provided some kind of support or service during the tours that Edmundo and Machado have made within Venezuela. Of the total, 77 have occurred after July 4, the start date of the campaign. Most of those arrested have been released.
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