🇻🇪🇻🇪⛓📱 — A young Venezuelan woman has been sentenced to ten years in prison for posting criticism of Nicolás Maduro’s government on social media. The ruling raises concerns about the intensifying repression in Venezuela, where the opposition is increasingly criminalized

➡️ Merlys Oropeza, 25, was arrested on August 9, 2024—just eleven days after presidential elections widely denounced as fraudulent.

📱 The post that led to Merlys’s arrest was published on Facebook. She wrote: “How sad that someone has to depend on a food package,” referring to a state-run subsidized food distribution program. The criticism targeted the local community leader in charge (Dayana) of distributing the goods—a known pro-government activist who reported her to the authorities.

⚖️ The young woman was charged under the Anti-Hate Law, passed in 2017 by Venezuela’s pro-Maduro parliament, which has been systematically used to silence critics of the regime. Human rights organizations warn that the law functions as a tool to suppress dissent with disproportionate penalties.

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