For the first time, last February, the Venezuelan authorities leaked photographs of the activist and human rights defender, Rocío San Miguel, director of the NGO Citizen Control. The renowned academic remains in prison under vague accusations of espionage, conspiracy and treason. In one of them, a visibly emaciated Saint Michael is seen carrying a paper with the date of the day and the time of the moment. , a Venezuelan of Spanish parents, was undergoing a CT scan to undergo surgery after suffering a fracture in her right shoulder.
Until this moment, there was total ignorance about the prison conditions and the physical integrity of San Miguel, a public figure for whom repeated calls have been made for him to be released once and for all by virtue of his innocence. The Spanish embassy and former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero have tried to arrange for her to be released or, at least, for her to have decent conditions in prison. Juan González, defense attorney, commented that San Miguel’s injury occurred about four months ago, and that it occurred after he fell as a result of “dizziness, the result of labyrinthitis that was not properly treated.” “If the fracture was diagnosed four months after it happened, what guarantees do we have of quality medical care and that he will receive postoperative treatments and rehabilitation?” the lawyer asked.
During all these years, , linked above all to the study of security and defense issues of the nation, with a deep knowledge of the country’s military reality. His opinion was frequently required to gauge the institutional situation and the evolution of Venezuelan military thought in the years of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
at the Simón Bolívar international airport, when she was preparing to take a flight to the city of Miami accompanied by her daughter. Two days later, the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, accused her of being involved in Operation Blanco Bracelet, an alleged conspiracy plan denounced by the senior Chavista hierarchy at the beginning of this year, of which no further details have been offered.
The arrest of San Miguel produced enormous shock in Venezuelan society, and opened the floodgates to the hardening of a repressive process that regulated the development of the electoral campaign for the July 27 elections and that has become a chronic circumstance since then.
After her arrest, judicial and punitive measures multiplied against dozens of civil activists and opposition politicians, almost all of them close to María Corina Machado, allegedly for being part of a conspiracy to overthrow Nicolás Maduro.
