Maria Corina Machado Speaks In English To PBS Explaining The Situation In Venezuela

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) Current opposition party leaders and members are in hiding from Maduro's government who suggested that Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia need to spend the next 30 years in jail.
Machado says...“The world knows that Venezuela voted for change.
And that's how we are designing the
Saturday event August 17. We're calling people to come with their children, grandchildren, and their parents.”
Maria is interviewed in English below:

The top United Nations human rights official voiced deep concerns over the deteriorating situation in Venezuela two weeks after elections that the opposition says it won.
President Nicolas Maduro claims he won the vote and is cracking down heavily on protestors.
Over 2000 protesters jailed with at least 24 murdered.
Just two days after the election, messages were passed around that government drones were flying over working-class neighborhoods, gathering evidence on protesters.
Some barrios are quiet now, not even the pots and pans are heard anymore as the people are frightened of their government.
Maduro is even urging people to use a government app to denounce those he says are exhibiting anti-government behavior. The head of the Venezuelan National Assembly and a spokesman for Maduro said "The truth is that the rats are coming for us, the heads of Facebook, X and Amazon.
Such sites want to destroy humanity and spread hate and fascism.”
He then denounced all foreign criticism of Venezuela and called a UN report released yesterday as garbage.
PBS discussed the political crisis in Venezuela with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in English.

Venezuela's opposition called for worldwide protests on August 17 to show support for its claimed victory in last month's election over President Nicolas Maduro, who was declared the winner.
"This Saturday, August 17, we will take to the streets of Venezuela and the world... let's shout together so that the world supports our victory and recognizes the truth and popular sovereignty," said opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in a video on social media.
Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who replaced Machado on the ballot after she was banned from running, said separately: "We won; Venezuela won... see you on the 17th."
Both leaders have been in hiding for over a week, with Machado saying recently that she feared for her life, as several other members of the Venezuelan opposition have been reportedly whisked away with no warning.
Electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 vote with 52 percent, but have yet to release a detailed breakdown of the results.
The opposition, in contrast, published printed tallies -- the legitimacy of which has been denied by Maduro but backed by the United States and several Latin American countries.
Those results show Gonzalez Urrutia receiving 67 percent of the vote.

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro
is trying to accomplish something that seems impossible in the South American country: steer people away from WhatsApp and X.
Maduro's announcement that he had ordered a block on access to X in Venezuela is the latest in a series of efforts by his government to try to suppress information sharing among people voicing doubts about his claim to victory in the July 28 presidential election.
It also reveals how every aspect of Venezuela's government is subject to Maduro's wants and needs, as he went from demanding his Cabinet to retweet his posts to ordering the nation's telecommunications agency to block access to X.
Elon Musk out!”
Maduro accused its owner; tech billionaire Elon Musk, of using it to promote hatred after Venezuela's disputed presidential election. Meanwhile, the opposition has collected tally sheets from more than 80%
of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide showing he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

The emergence of 'YouTube' channels has been very powerful in terms of the dissemination of information on social networks and virtual messaging or private messaging apps.”
Maduro went after Meta's WhatsApp messaging app, publicly deleting it from his phone during his weekly TV show.
WhatsApp plays an integral role in everyday life in Venezuela.
Millions use it not only to chat among friends and family, but also to schedule beauty salon and doctor's appointments, buy food, hail a cab, send and receive school homework, and hire and fire employees.
Even the ruling party's vast network of neighborhood leaders depend on the app to distribute subsidized food, take attendance at pro-government events and coordinate voter-mobilizing efforts on election days, including on July 28.
And the country's main opposition used it to communicate with campaign volunteers, local organizers and others, who contributed to the bloc's herculean task of securing the tally sheets
from polling sites.

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