Univision News has said that one of their anchors, Jorge Ramos, and his team had been detained in Caracas, Venezuela, after the troubled nation’s illegitimate socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, voiced his displeasure at an interview, the U.S. network tweeted on Monday night, Feb. 25.
Although the team of six has supposedly since been released, the network said that the team’s technical equipment had all been confiscated by Maduro’s people.
According to Daniel Coronell, chief news and digital officer, the press team were detained after Maduro “didn’t like the questions” in their interview. The team was detained in Miraflores Palace by Maduro’s loyalists after the interview was cut short.
In another tweet, the U.S. Department of State confirmed the news, saying that the journalist and his team were “being held against their will” by Maduro. It urged the regime to immediately release the members of the press.
“StateDept has received word the journalist Jorge Ramos and his team are being held against their will at Miraflores Palace by Nicolas Maduro,” Kimberly Breier, assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, wrote. “We insist on their immediate release; the world is watching.”
An hour and a half later, Coronell tweeted that Venezuela’s minister of communications had now assured him that Ramos and the rest of his team had been released and were “headed for their hotel,” although he added that he had not been able to get in contact with the team to verify this.
Another 15 minutes later, Univision News posted a photo confirming that Ramos and his team were back at the hotel.
Vice President Mike Pence joined regional leaders from the Lima Group of nations across Latin America and Canada earlier in the day in Bogotá, Columbia, to denounce the blocking of aid into Venezuela and announce new sanctions against Venezuelan regime leader Nicolas Maduro.
Pence reaffirmed the full support of the United States towards interim Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó and his government.
The event was the first meeting for the Lima Group since a failed push to get U.S.-donated aid into Venezuela. Aid trucks were being pushed back and set on fire—widely reported to be done at the hands of pro-Maduro criminal groups.
Nearly 300 were injured over the weekend as individuals, who were attempting to deliver the aid, clashed with Venezuela’s National Guard and groups loyal to Maduro. Five people, including two who were indigenous to Venezuela’s southern limit with Brazil, were killed.
After Juan Guaidó called for a minute’s silence for the five people who lost their lives in the aid initiative, Pence told the international press and presidents from across Latin America that it was “unconscionable that Maduro blocked hundreds of tonnes of aid from getting to his impoverished people,” and repeatedly denounced that the dictator “danced while trucks full of aid and medicine burned.”
