Venezuelan authorities on Monday charged prominent journalist Braulio Jatar Alonso with money laundering, although his family said he was arrested for releasing videos of a rowdy protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Jatar, of Chilean-Venezuelan dual nationality, was one of about 30 people arrested after a protest on Friday last week in which an angry, pot-banging crowd surrounded Maduro at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, blaming him for crippling food shortages.
Dozens of protesters were swept up in an ensuing crackdown, human rights groups said.
All have now been released except Jatar, who is the director of the Venezuelan news Web site Reporte Confidencial.
The National Press Workers’ Union condemned his arrest as “arbitrary” and “political.”
“Deprived of his freedom for reporting the news,” Jatar’s son wrote on Twitter. “They won’t muzzle us, and they won’t muzzle Venezuela.”
Posting images of a heavily armed police contingent outside his father’s hearing in the Caribbean island resort city of Porlamar, Jatar’s son wrote that it resembled a court appearance of the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Jatar will remain in custody at the local headquarters of the Venezuelan intelligence service, his Web site said.
The journalist was arrested on Saturday morning on his way to a radio station where he hosts a program, his family said.
The authorities have not explained their case against him.
According to Jatar’s family, police said he was arrested with a large amount of cash in his vehicle.
The Venezuelan government has accused the media of “exaggerating” Friday’s protest, which came on the heels of massive anti-Maduro demonstrations that drew about 1 million people on Thursday, the biggest in decades.
Sideswiped by a plunge in global crude prices, oil-rich Venezuela has descended into an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.
Protesters are demanding the authorities let the opposition go ahead with efforts to call a referendum on removing Maduro from power.
About 60 people were arrested for unrest at Thursday last week’s protests, 23 of whom remain in custody, according to a watchdog group.
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