At least 16 killed, more than 1,000 arrested in Venezuela's anti Maduro mass protests

CARACAS, Venezuela

Venezuela government security forces are detaining volunteer poll watchers who monitored the presidential election here Sunday, opposition leaders said, and President Nicolás Maduro is encouraging Venezuelans to report protesters who dispute the claim that he won.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested and at least 16 have been killed in mass protests since the election, government officials and civil society groups said Wednesday, as Venezuelans continued to question the reelection of the authoritarian socialist.

Maduro’s electoral council says he defeated challenger Edmundo González by 7 percentage points to win six more years in office, but has refused to publish voting data to support the claim.

Independent exit polling, an analysis of results from a sample of voting centers and, the opposition says, the government’s own records show González captured twice as many votes as Maduro. Maduro claimed on Wednesday that the opposition had hacked the country’s voting system.

The Biden administration’s “patience and that of the international community is running out on waiting for the Venezuelan electoral authorities to come clean and release the full, detailed data on this election,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned Wednesday. The United States, he told reporters, condemns “political violence and repression of any kind.”

“We have serious concerns about the reports of casualties, violence and arrests, including the arrest warrants that Maduro and his representatives issued today for opposition leaders,” he said. “Alongside the international community, we’re watching and we’re going to respond accordingly.”

In the coastal state of Vargas, opposition leaders said, the crackdown against poll watchers began soon after Sunday’s election. Security forces have detained multiple people, the opposition’s chief campaign organizer in Vargas said, and many more have fled their homes in fear.

“These poll watchers played a key and fundamental role on the July 28 elections,” José Rafael Rolón Cedeño told The Washington Post. “It was them who defended the physical voting tallies, which in turn helped us defend democracy in Venezuela. They were the ones that gave us the evidence that we had won. That’s why the government is attacking” them.

Jesús Armas, an opposition campaign organizer in Caracas, said security forces and the Maduro-supporting bikers known as colectivos appear to be targeting low-income areas that have previously been strongholds of government support.

“They’ve arrested poll watchers for being in protests and organizing protests,” Armas told The Post. “But we’ve also seen that poll watchers are targeted because, in many cases, they’re community leaders. So it’s not only that they served as poll watchers, but also that they’re mobilizing people and are the heads of their communities.

“The government’s goal, it seems, is to squash any protest — especially in the areas that were once their bastions of power.”

Foro Penal, a rights group that has been tracking arrests, injuries and deaths in the aftermath of the election, said it could not confirm that poll watchers were being targeted.

“We don’t have that radar,” said Gonzalo Himiob, the group’s director. “What we have are detained opposition leaders, opposition mayors and people who were in the protests or, even without protesting, in the surrounding areas.”

The government has also taken the crackdown into cyberspace. Speaking from the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace on Tuesday, Maduro urged Venezuelans to report protesters on the government application VenApp. His government launched it in 2022 to receive reports of power outages and medical emergencies.

“We’re opening a new page in the app for all the Venezuelan population, so they can confidentially give me all the information about the delinquents who have threatened the people — attacked the people — so we can go after them and bring them to prompt justice,” Maduro said.

When the app was created, human rights advocates warned that it could be repurposed.

“We are watching the technology being used as a weapon of political persecution,” said Luis Serrano, coordinator of the rights group RedesAyuda. “Here in Venezuela, peaceful protest is not a crime. What is dangerous and outside the law is that people take a picture of their neighbors and share it with authorities only for participating in a protest.”

The government also launched the Telegram channel “Hunting Guarimbas” — the word refers to blocking roads in protest — where it’s posting photos and videos of protesters and asking users to identify them.

Social media was flooded with complaints about VenApp, and by Wednesday, it did not appear to be available in either the Apple or Google app stores.

A spokesperson for Google said the company pulled the app Wednesday afternoon after determining it violated its policies against bullying and harassment. Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Opposition leaders said Wednesday that security forces had surrounded the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where six opposition campaign staffers have been holed up since arrest warrants were issued against them in December. The embassy’s power was cut off.

Argentine President Javier Milei, who has questioned Maduro’s election victory, denounced what he called a “deliberate action that endangers the safety of Argentine diplomatic personnel and Venezuelan citizens under protection.”

The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela called on X for an end to the “threats and persecution” against the campaign staffers and for “the immediate approval of their safe passage.”