Foreign media accused of crying ‘foul’ through dirty work — MercoPress

Venezuela: Foreign media accused of crying ‘foul’ through dirty work

Amoroso is the official responsible for announcing the election results.

As the president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, denounced Western media for orchestrating activities to taint next Sunday’s presidential election, Jorge Pizarro, an Argentinian journalist with Radio Rivadavia in Buenos Aires, was denied entry upon arrival at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas and deported via Panama after being detained for more than six hours.

Amoroso insisted that no legally registered Venezuelan citizen would be allowed to vote and ruled out cancelling the vote, and he also suggested that Western media were already conspiring to cry “unfairness” after he projected a victory for incumbent President Nicolas Maduro.

Pizarro arrived in Macetia, where the airport is located, and said his passport was confiscated because he was held in a detention center for more than six hours without even being allowed to drink water, take medicine or go to the toilet. “For six hours, they didn’t even give me a glass of water. I had to take medicine, but they wouldn’t let me. I wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet,” he said.

“I asked them why they asked me so many questions and almost put me in jail, and they told me that they were the ones who asked those questions. That’s when I understood what was happening. From that point on, they interrogated me 10 times, took 14 photos in different scenarios, seized my passport, took me to the quarantine and deportation office, and made me record a video,” Pizarro explained, adding that his cell phone and luggage were confiscated.

Finally, Pizarro was told that he would be deported because he did not meet entry requirements.

Italian journalist Barbara Schiavulli also decried this week that a group of international journalists were not allowed into Venezuela to cover the presidential election. Schiavulli said in a video widely circulated on social media that the local government responded positively to her after she reported on the July 28 election, but she and others were turned away as soon as they provided flight and accommodation information in Venezuela. Many journalists said they would cover the Venezuelan election from other countries on Venezuela’s border.

Amoroso is the official in charge of announcing the election results. Political analysts in Caracas agree that the image of the 60-year-old Chavista lawyer saying opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia will succeed Maduro is unthinkable.