There is also an Italian-Venezuelan, Rita Capriti, 50 years old, among hundreds of people arrested in Venezuela in the aftermath of protests over the disputed July 28 elections that gave a dubious victory to the outgoing president, Nicolas Maduro. The woman, born in the city of Maracay from parents who emigrated from the province of Messinawas reportedly taken away from her home on the night of August 2nd on charges of “incitement to hatred”: this was announced on social media by the opposition party Primero Justicia, of which Capriti is vice president in the state of Aragua.
“We are very worried about her health, she needs medicine, she has been locked up in a police station for five days now and we don’t know if she will be sent to prison or released,” a relative, Maria Giovanna Sapone, told ANSA. The arrest could be due to a video in which Capriti invites the population to vote “for democracy” and to put an “end to 25 years of a government that has only ruined us.” “There is now a climate of civil war in Venezuela, Rita’s detention is clearly a form of political repression,” Sapone stressed, according to whom the person who reported her cousin could have been a neighbor who is a sympathizer of the “Chavismo” in power.