Venezuelan protesters are to receive “maximum punishment” for their demonstrations against the so-called victory of President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro announced that 2,000 civilians were arrested as a result of the demonstrations.
“We have 2,000 prisoners captured, and from there, they will go to Tocorón and Tocuyito [prisons], maximum punishment, justice,” he said. “This time, there will be no forgiveness; this time, there will be Tocorón.”
According to Bloomberg, the protesters may be imprisoned for up to 30 years, the same sentences given to murderers.
The outlet reported that Maduro has utilized state-controlled groups to legitimize the election’s outcomes. Electoral authorities claim Maduro won with 51.95% of the vote, whereas the opposite party released voting tabulations indicating that Edmundo González received nearly 70% of the vote.
Several lawmakers have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s leader, instead introducing a resolution recognizing González as the president-elect.
Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) wrote that Venezuela’s elections were “neither free nor fair.
“Data released by the vast majority of polling centers showed that the leader of the opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia, won with an overwhelming number of votes,” the senators wrote, adding that “numerous countries have either called for transparency in the tally of election results or have rejected the results outright based on clear evidence of fraud, including Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay.”
The U.S. Senate “asserts that the victory of Edmundo González marks the return of a democratically elected leader at the national level in Venezuela and stands in solidarity with the Venezuelan people in their democratic aspirations to live freely without repression,” the resolution states.
