Venezuela’s opposition says leader Machado was briefly arrested at the demonstration

Venezuela’s opposition says its leader María Corina Machado was briefly arrested and then released after addressing a protest rally on the eve of President Nicolás Maduro’s controversial inauguration.

Machado, 57, was “violently intercepted” in eastern Caracas and the motorcycle convoy she was riding in was fired upon, the opposition said, adding that she was forced to record several videos while detained.

Venezuela’s Information Minister Freddy Nanez dismissed reports of Machado’s detention as a “media distraction”.

Maduro, 62, was declared the winner of last July’s presidential election, but the opposition and many countries, including the United States, reject the result as fraudulent and recognize now-exiled opposition candidate Edmundo González as the legitimate president-elect.

González fled Venezuela in September and has been living in Spain, but this month he went on a tour of America to rally international support.

The Maduro government has issued an arrest warrant for him and is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Machado, who González replaced on the ballot after she was barred from running herself, has also been targeted. She went into hiding shortly after the disputed election and was last seen in public in August before Thursday’s demonstration.

Earlier in the day, the United Nations expressed its alarm after receiving reports of arbitrary detentions and intimidation in Venezuela ahead of opposition marches.

It highlighted the arrest of Carlos Correa, the head of an NGO that promotes press freedom, who was seized by unidentified hooded men earlier this week.

Maduro’s government has deployed thousands of police officers to Caracas, where the pro-government National Assembly plans to swear Maduro in for a third term.

The opposition, for its part, called on its supporters to turn out in droves in an attempt to thwart the ceremony.

In the city of Valencia, police fired tear gas at protesters, according to Reuters.

In western Caracas, 70-year-old Niegalos Payares told the news agency that “I’m not afraid, I lost my fear a long time ago”.

And in the city of Maracay in central Venezuela, Roisa Gómez told a Reuters reporter that she “fought for my vote, which I cast for Edmundo González. They cannot steal the election.”

Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential election by the government-dominated National Electoral Council (CNE), but the CNE has so far failed to provide detailed voting data to support this claim.

Earlier this month in Washington, González met US President Joe Biden, who said Venezuela deserved a “peaceful transfer of power”.

In Panama, González deposited thousands of ballots collected by the opposition in the country’s bank for safekeeping.

The tallies have been the main evidence presented by the opposition to show that González, not Maduro, won the election.

With the help of official election witnesses, they managed to collect 85% of the numbers and upload them to the Internet.

Independent observers and media organizations that have reviewed them say they show González beat Maduro by a landslide.