Venezuela protests rage, jailed Lopez supporters stage vigil
CARACAS, (Reuters) - Supporters of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez held a vigil outside his prison demanding to see him on Thursday after rumors about his health rattled the protest-hit country where the death toll from antigovernment unrest rose to 36.
Lopez’s wife and mother rushed to a military hospital in Caracas and then the hilltop Ramo Verde jail overnight, after a journalist tweeted Lopez had been taken to a medical centre without vital signs.
President Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government, facing a wave of major opposition protests since last month, later issued a short “proof of life” video in which Lopez said he was fine.
Officials accused Lopez’s family of stirring up a media frenzy to get attention and further stoke the protests.
“Today is May 3, it’s 9 p.m . ... I’m sending a message to my family and my children that I am well,” said Lopez, 46, standing cross-armed in front of cell bars and looking healthy in a sleeveless white T-shirt.
But Lopez’s wife Lilian Tintori, who says she has not been allowed to see him in over a month, rejected the video as “false” and spent the night outside the jail.
“The only proof of life that we will accept is to see Leopoldo,” she tweeted, as she and Lopez’s mother faced a line of green-clad National Guard soldiers at the prison. They later rotated out with some supporters to get sleep.
Lopez is Venezuela’s most prominent imprisoned politician, and U.S. President Donald Trump in February called for his release after a White House meeting with Tintori.
Venezuelans, already on tenterhooks after the unrest that has killed protesters, government supporters, bystanders and security officials, were shaken by the rumors over Lopez, who was jailed in 2014 during the last major round of protests.
The U.S.-educated economist and leader of the hard-line Popular Will party is accused of inciting violence, and in 2015 was sentenced to almost 14 years behind bars.
The government says he is a dangerous agitator, pointing to his involvement in a brief 2002 coup against the late Hugo Chavez, when Lopez even helped arrest a Cabinet minister.
“They’re inventing that something or other has been done to Leopoldo to put together a big, pretty show, so that we forget the 43 deaths he caused,” said Socialist Party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello, in reference to those killed during unrest in 2014.
Lopez’s supporters say he was tried in a kangaroo court because he had been viewed as a future presidential hopeful and a threat to Maduro. Others in the opposition deem him a divisive hothead who took to the streets too early and say his supporters exaggerate incidents to get support.
Over 1,700 people have been arrested, with 597 of them still jailed, since the unrest began in early April, according to rights group Penal Forum. Hundreds have been injured, often in confusing street melees between stone-throwing youths and security forces firing tear gas and water cannons.