Venezuelan journalist Ana Carolina Guaita was arrested and detained for terrorism and criminal conspiracy on August 20 in the northern city of Maiquetía, three weeks following her report on anti-government protests after the country’s disputed July 28 presidential election.
Guaita, 32, is a reporter in the northern state of La Guaira for the Venezuelan news site La Patilla. On the day she was arrested, plainclothes agents, alleged to be with the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), arrested Guaita outside her home, according to multiple reports.
Guaita is being held at La Guaira state government’s citizen security building in the northern city of La Guaira, according to the Caracas-based free press organization Institute for Press and Society (IPYS). CPJ reported that security officials offered to release Guaita if her mother, Xiomara Barreto, who worked on the opposition campaign against President Nicolás Maduro in the election, turned herself in. Barreto, who is in hiding, rejected the proposal.
Guaita’s arrest is part of an ongoing crackdown by President Maduro’s authoritarian government on independent journalists in the wake of the disputed presidential election.
A special anti-terrorism tribunal accused Guaita of terrorism and criminal conspiracy. The authorities did not grant Guaita access to private lawyers, and she was forced to accept a public defender. When a private lawyer tried to visit Guaita, he was threatened by authorities, according to family members.
On October 9, 2024, after Guaita had been detained for 45 days, the National Press Workers Union said Venezuelan judicial authorities had yet to formally charge her, so she must be released, according to Venezuelan law. Family members said Guaita was suffering from severe depression.
CPJ calls in late 2024 to the Interior Ministry, which oversees SEBIN, and to La Guaira state security officials went unanswered.