Mayor of Caracas arrested, accused of planning coup

(Image credit: Twitter.com/telesurenglish)

published 20 February 2015

Venezuelan intelligence police arrested Antonio Ledezma, the opposition mayor of Caracas and an outspoken critic of President Nicolas Maduro and his handling of the economy, on Thursday.

The mayor's detainment came one day after the anniversary of another opposition leader's arrest, Bloomberg reports, and Congressman Richard Blanco of Ledezma's Alianza Bravo Pueblo said that officers shot into the air and hit Ledezma before taking him without a warrant. The country is plagued by economic problems and shortages of basic necessities, and "this is part of the government's brutal crackdown to neutralize the opposition ahead of elections," Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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