Venezuelan government releases ‘proof of life’ video of opposition leader Lopez

Family and supporters of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez stood outside his prison on Thursday, demanding to see him after rumours about his health rattled the protest-hit country overnight. His wife and mother had rushed to a military hospital in Caracas and then the hilltop Ramo Verde jail on Wednesday night, after a journalist tweeted that Mr Lopez had been taken to a medical centre without vital signs.

President Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government later issued a short video in which Mr Lopez said he is fine, and officials accused Mr Lopez’s family of stirring up a media frenzy to get attention. “Today is May 3rd, it’s 9pm . . . I’m sending a message to my family and my children that I am well,” said Mr Lopez (46) standing in front of cell bars wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and crossing his arms.

But Mr Lopez’s wife, Lilian Tintori, who says she has not been allowed to meet with her spouse in over a month, rejected that as evidence that he was alive and spent the night outside the prison. “The dictatorship’s video is FALSE. The only proof of life that we will accept is to see Leopoldo,” she tweeted early on Thursday, posting a photo of herself and Mr Lopez’s mother facing a line of green-clad National Guard soldiers deployed at the prison about an hour’s drive from the capital Caracas.

Vigil

They later rotated out to get some sleep, and let other supporters take up the vigil.

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Mr Lopez is Venezuela’s most prominent imprisoned politician, and US president Donald Trump in mid-February called for his immediate release following a White House meeting with Ms Tintori.

Venezuelans, already on tenterhooks after a month of protests and unrest that have left at least 35 people dead, were shaken by the rumours over Mr Lopez, a former mayor who was jailed in 2014 during the last major round of protests. The US-educated economist and leader of the hard-line Popular Will party is accused of inciting street 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 Mr Lopez even helped arrest a cabinet minister. Mr Lopez’s supporters say he was tried in a kangaroo court because he had been viewed as a future presidential hopeful and thus a threat to unpopular Mr Maduro.

Divisive hothead

Still, others in the opposition deem him a divisive hothead who took to the streets too early and feel his supporters exaggerate incidents to get international support.

In this latest bout of unrest, rights group Penal Forum says more than 1,700 people have been arrested since early April with 597 of them still jailed. Hundreds have also been injured, often in confusing street melees between stone-throwing hooded youth and security forces firing tear gas and water cannons.

Mr Maduro’s call on Monday to rewrite the constitution has further energised the protest movement, and students were set to march from universities across the country on Thursday. But the opposition must maintain momentum despite fatigue, injuries, disruptions to daily life, and fears that protests will end up flopping like so many times in the past.

Demonstrators are demanding early elections to remove Mr Maduro and bring an end to a devastating recession that has food and medicine running short. The government retorts the opposition is secretly seeking to stoke a coup and says many demonstrators are little more than vandals.

A policeman in Carabobo state died overnight after being shot during a protest, the public prosecutor's office said on Thursday, bringing total deaths in recent unrest to at least 35. – (Reuters)