Venezuela: Mobs attack police as protests against Maduro turn nasty
Venezuela: Mobs attack police as protests against Maduro turn nasty
May Friday 20th 2016
posted by James Tweedie in World
VENEZUELAN right-wing protests degenerated into violence on Wednesday with paramilitary veterans of 2014’s deadly Guarimba riots leading the charge.
The marches, including one of thousands to the National Electoral Council (CNE) in the capital Caracas, were organised by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition of opposition parties.
Protesters demanded that the CNE’s validation of signatures for the recall referendum process against United Socialist Party President Nicolas Maduro be fast-tracked.
They breached a police cordon around the CNE offices in Venezuela Square, attacking officers with poles, stones and fists.
Telesur TV captured the mob surrounding and assaulting a female civil servant until someone intervened and calmed the attackers.
Meanwhile, female police officer Dubraska Alvarez was struck with sticks and metal pipes by demonstrators on Libertador Avenue in the capital.
In the city’s Chacao suburb, seven protesters were arrested, including Jheremy Bastardo and other known participants in the 2014 street violence that left 43 people dead.
His accomplice Romer Moreno admitted under interrogation that a group of youths had received funding from a right-wing MP’s chief of security “to participate in violent acts,” said Justice and Peace Minister Gustavo Gonzalez.
More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-4aa2-Venezuela-Mobs-attack-police-as-protests-against-Maduro-turn-nasty#.Vz6Tv-Qo6bw
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