Maduro regime threatens Juan Guaidó press officer

In tightening the siege against the main collaborators of opposition leader Juan Guaidó , the regime of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro turned against this week the main press officer and chief of staff of the country's self-proclaimed interim president, journalist Edward Rodríguez , whom he threatens with imminent arrest. In a televised speech, Maduro's number two, Diosdado Cabello, ordered security forces to pursue Rodríguez.

“Warning to security agencies: the nickname Cabecion, specialist in creating fake news and false positives. Pending, pending. Don't say I didn't warn you. The nickname Cabecion is called Edward Rodríguez Jiménez ”, declared Cabello in his program broadcast by the Venezuelan Television network.

Rodríguez also accumulates the press coordination of the National Assembly of Venezuela , chaired by Guaidó, and has been one of his main allies since before the rise of the opposition leader, in early 2019. This week, he has been a key player in publicizing the attack against Guaidó by armed groups during an opposition demonstration in Barquisimeto, capital of the state of Lara, on Saturday, 29. The attack left five people injured, including a 16-year-old boy hit in the leg. Guaidó denounced the fact as an attempt to assassinate him, and several governments, including Brazil's and Spain's socialist, condemned the action.

A mobilization of the Venezuelan opposition against the regime and the latest acts of repression was called for Tuesday, 10. Cabello considered the initiative as yet another “false positive”, a deceptive setup.

To the Spanish newspaper ABC , Rodríguez said he will continue working as usual, despite threats from Diodado Cabello . On Twitter, he said that human rights bodies inside and outside Venezuela have already noted the threat to his integrity and that of his family and Cabello's baseless accusations. In a letter to the Inter-American Press Society sent on Thursday, 5, the journalist denounced the persecution to which he became a target and described in detail the attack on Guaidó and his collaborators in Barquisimeto.

The case of persecution of Rodríguez is not the first and, possibly, will not be the last while Nicolás Maduro's government persists. The regime's siege has been closed sensibly against its opponents. At the end of 2019, deputy Yon Goicochea received threats from the regime and left the country temporarily. In February, Guaidó's uncle, Juan José Márquez, was arrested on landing at Maiquetía International Airport, coming from Lisbon with his nephew, who was ending an international pilgrimage in search of support. Márquez, who is a civil aviation pilot and does not work in the political field, remains imprisoned to date in the General Directorate for Military Counter-Intelligence in Caracas.

The National Union of Press Workers of Venezuela recalled by means of a note that Rodríguez has precautionary protective measures issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and stressed that he is a “journalist with an impeccable trajectory”. “We make Nicolás Maduro's bureaucracy responsible for what may happen to his colleague and the people closest to him,” he informed.