Venezuelans shut down roads and highways in protest

Protesters sprawled in lawn chairs, worked on math homework and played cards on main roads around Venezuela Monday as part of a sit-in against the government.

In Caracas, thousands of protesters shut down the capital city’s main highway to express their disgust with the increasingly embattled socialist administration of President Nicolas Maduro. They turned the road into a kind of public plaza, with protesters laying out picnics, reading books and reclining under umbrellas they brought to protect them from the blazing Caribbean sun.

Juan Carlos Bautista, 48, passed the afternoon playing dominos.

“We want to be free. I’m here fighting for my children and my children’s children,” he said.

Protesters in least a dozen other cities also staged sit-ins Monday, with some building barricades to stop traffic. In Caracas, protesters dragged concrete slabs, garbage and even a bathtub into the road.

The protest movement is entering its fourth week, and has become increasingly deadly.

On Sunday, a 21st death was linked to the unrest that began almost a month ago over the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the opposition-controlled congress of its powers. The Interior Ministry said that Almelina Carrillo died in a hospital after being hit on the head by a frozen water bottle that someone threw from a high rise toward a pro-government rally last week.