By Mariana Duque.
Arbitrary detentions in Venezuela are multiplying as part of the Maduro regime polemical response to the Coronavirus pandemic, according to activists who denounce that some of the National Guards whose trying to enforce the quarantine are sick themselves.
At least 30 citizens have been detained in the city of San Cristobal during the current week for being in commercial establishments defying the quarantine regulations, announced by the regime with emphasis for some states, including Tachira because it borders with Colombia.
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Leonardo Manrique, the coordinator of the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy in Táchira state, told El Pitazo on Friday, June 26, that the detentions were arbitrary and endangered the lives of these citizens, who were herded into military convoys and later gathered at the National Guard (GN) headquarters.
“The rights of these people have violated when they are crowded together in closed places and exposed even more. Twelve guards are infected and don’t know where to take them,” he said.
“We are against the arbitrary arrests in the middle of the quarantine. We have seen how from different places in the city, trucks full of civilians guarded by the National Guard, exposes them even more to contagion,” he said.
Manrique agrees with the authorities’ efforts to provide security and survey the pandemic without affecting the individual rights of citizens, especially the right to freedom and work since some people need to go out to work.
