Following up on this morning’s post, more persecution of the opposition:
In recent weeks, the government has stepped up pressure on several key opposition members.
It announced its intention to freeze the bank accounts of the Miguel Henrique Otero, publisher of El Nacional, one of Venezuela’s two remaining nationally circulated newspapers.
Authorities jailed and froze the assets of the editor of a small independent paper and website, Leocenis García of Sexto Poder, who has published detailed reports of alleged government corruption, including what he calls multimillion-dollar graft involving manipulation of currency controls.
And the National Assembly, controlled by allies of Mr. Maduro, stripped opposition lawmaker Richard Mardo of immunity from prosecution, opening the way for the government to pursue a tax fraud case against him. The opposition calls it a trumped-up attempt to silence a critic.
Maduro’s following his masters’ template, or as he put it, “The Venezuelans don’t call the shots here, we make the decisions in Cuba.”
