Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado denounced on Tuesday (08/27/2024) the arrest of lawyer Perkins Rocha, legal adviser to the main anti-Chavista coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), for which she blamed the “regime of President Nicolás Maduro”.
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“They intend to break us, blur our focus and intimidate us. We will keep moving forward, for Perkins, for all the prisoners and persecuted, and for all of Venezuela. We will be free,” he said.
The human rights committee of Vente Venezuela (VV) – a group led by Machado – reported that Rocha was “forcibly taken away by unknown people”, who was also a witness for the opposition bloc before the National Electoral Council (CNE) in the presidential elections on July 28.
Likewise, the party demanded information on his whereabouts in X, as well as his “immediate release”.
More recently, the lawyer said that Nicolás Maduro “refuses to accept what all Venezuelans know”, in reference to the victory that the PUD claims its standard-bearer Edmundo González Urrutia obtained in the presidential election, “83.5% according to the minutes”. He claims to have collected documents through witnesses and board members, which the government describes as “false”.
On Saturday, Machado called on the international community to hold Maduro and his “criminal regime” accountable for “the repression unleashed” in the country, “especially after the elections.”
According to official figures, since July 29, more than 2,400 people have been arrested – some in demonstrations and others in police action – while 25 people were killed in incidents of violence that the government attributes to the opposition, while anti-Chavismo forces blame state security forces on orders from superiors.