PHOTOS: Venezuelans Abroad Show Support for Protests

Thousands of Venezuelans that now live outside of their home country have organised demonstrations to support the actions on the streets in the South American country. The images of these gatherings have been shared widely on social networks.

On Facebook the page SOS Venezuela [es] collects a large number of photos, which are also published with the tags #iamyourvoicevenezuela #SOSVenezuela and #PrayForVenezuela on Twitter and Instagram.

My cousin sent me this photos of Venezuelans and foreigners protesting today in Malta.

Some Venezuelans abroad took advantage of the protests to deliver documents to international organisations or to the Parliaments of the countries where they live. This was the case with a group of citizens who demonstrated in The Hague.

Venezuelans in The Hague, Holland. We presented a document to Parliament. We denounced human rights violations in Venezuela

Gaby Silva published a video on Instagram [es] of the demonstration by a group of Venezuelans in Madrid. The video shows citizens calling for justice, peace and dialogue.

The newspaper TalCual [es] shared a photo of protestors in Times Square in New York City.

PROTESTS IN NEW YORK. Hundreds of Venezuelans protested in Times Square.

There were even demonstrations in Australia:

Venezuelans in Sydney show their solidarity with the student marches

Meanwhile, in Venezuela the opposition leader Leopoldo López turned himself in to the authorities and President Nicolás Maduro assured that he will faces charges of sedition and “unawareness of the Constitution”.

4 comments

  • antiautonomy

    Venezuela was technically a democracy for decades before Chavez, a democracy in the sense in which the U.S. is a democracy today: elections were held and votes were counted. During this period in time, left-wing groups (groups supporting the rights of poor people) were heavily oppressed: executions, disappearance, torture were all rampant. (George Ciccariello Maher recently wrote a book jammed full of interviews with survivors of this torture during the “democratic” years before Chavez.) During the Chavez years, those wealthier sections of Venezuelan society that had for decades been essentially tyrannizing the country’s lost their power. As a result of Chavez’s policies state spending on poor people in Venezuela skyrocketed. This increase in funding for programs for the poor is not debatable; the CEPR has documented this increase endlessly: see, for instance, here: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_update_2008_02.pdf
    The people protesting the government today primarily come from social classes that cared nothing for poor people when they were in power; now they simply want their privilege back (and their ability to buy luxury imported goods for cheap). Of course resisting neoliberalism in a global neoliberal world comes at a cost (here, inflation), but you cannot have meaningful democracy in a society with systemic economic inequality. You cannot claim to support democracy and simultaneously support people who, in a heartbeat, would gut social spending on the poor. (And we know the opposition would gut those programs because 1) they have a track record of not caring about the poor and 2) because all of the Venezuelan political actors who for decades pushed for anti-poverty programs are today lined up behind Maduro.)

    • El Venezolano

      It is quite evident that you write from a very strong prejudiced(and resented) sentiment and from a steep alienation from reality. If you are curious enough to investigate rather than repeat cheap left wing propaganda,you will realize soon that poverty has become rampant in Venezuela since this socialist movement came to power. The highest inflation rate in the planet for 5 years in a row,in a country where ALL resources including monetary exchange controls are in the hand of the government and where over on trillion us dollars has come in from oil exports in just one decade,all this in a country of barely 27 MM inhabitants. So please do not blame Neo Liberalism for poverty,when poverty has been created under SOCIALIST rule. It was notorious not to long ago( few months back) a declaration by the current minister of finance where he stated that 35 billion US Dollars were stolen from the national treasury through the muddy paths of Cadivi( the entity of the government in charge of supplying foreign currency to public companies and private alike) and even so,there has been not been to date ONE responsible tried or in prison for these crimes.Who stole the funds? The Neoliberal’s or your communist friends? Opposition leaders have demanded the list of companies to which these funds were granted,Maduro promised three months ago that he would make a public announcement with all names. And yet we are still waiting for the god dammed list of culprits while your friends devaluated the currency in well over 100% .As a result we do not even find now toillet paper to wipe our asses after a long day of work. Furthermore,to add insult to injury the national head of the judicial went on quite sarcastically to state,that she had not even one claim at her desk of such of a looting. Venezuelans are on the streets,from all walks of life and from all social classes,demanding that this corrupt and delinquent state MUST respond to the general public and be held accountable. El recreo,avenida fuerzas armadas,caricuao,are all working class neighborhood, and they are all protesting and been murdered by the national guard and the”colectivos”. And yes,I know what the fuck I am talking about, because I am a Venezuelan and I was born and raised in one of the most disadvantageous part of town. I am old enough to have ended my degree well before these looters came to power,and I went to first class tuition free education all the way up to my masters,and yes all paid by our democratic governments!. Never before had we the crime rate that is today,all which is just the product of the socialist arming violent sectors of the population to vandalize and keep opposition at bay. This came to be when the national strike went on for three months in a row back in 2002.And I could go on and on giving you a full explanation to prove you wrong,but with the very little said I rest my case. It is very sad to read these sort of post anywhere on the Internet. Shame on you antiautonomy!

      • antiautonomy

        Just about every academic who is not a hackish devote of game theory blames neoliberal policies for on going global poverty. Here is the classic text on the matter (written by the former vice president of the world bank):
        http://www.amazon.com/Globalization-Its-Discontents-Norton-Paperback/dp/0393324397
        Venezuelan poverty was not invented by the Chavistas (and your attempt to pretend it was nicely proves my earlier point about the disregard wealthier Venezuelans have for the country’s poor), and extreme poverty in Venezuela and throughout Latin America (largely due to the Chavista’s broader regional influence) has been on the decline since the Chavista-era began:
        http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/krugman-cato-and-inequality-in-latin-america
        The rest of your comments are just personal anecdotes and (dull) accusations of government corruption. The fact that you are writing in English (and boasting about your post-graduate education!) is really not helping you attempt to claim Venezuelan authenticity.

  • […] Venezuelans living abroad have organised demonstrations to support ongoing protests in their home country. Images are published on social networks with the tags #iamyourvoicevenezuela #SOSVenezuela and #PrayForVenezuela, among others.  […]

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