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News > Latin America

Milagro Sala Urges Venezuelans to Vote for Constituent Assembly

  • Milagro Sala

    Milagro Sala | Photo: EFE

Published 27 July 2017
Opinion

The Parlasur representative has also condemned the opposition's decision to refuse the offer of talks.

Jailed Indigenous activist and lawmaker Milagro Sala says Venezuelans should to go to the polls on Sunday to stand up for their rights and elect representatives to the new National Constituent Assembly.

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Maduro Invites the Opposition to Talks Before Assembly Vote

“The Constituent Assembly is the opportunity for Venezuelans to defend themselves from the lies of the right wing," said Sala in a letter she wrote from the prison in the Argentine province of Jujuy, where she has been detained for almost a year and a half.

“Don't let them deceive you with empty promises that will only bring pain and misery to the people,” she added. “Your vote will determine the fate of the country and all of Latin America.”

Sala — who is also a representative in Parlasur, the Parliament of the South American trading bloc Mercosur — has condemned the opposition's decision to reject the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's offer of dialogue.

“The right wing's decision to refuse these elections is the clearest proof of how little they care about democracy,” reads the letter. “When it's about having the people in charge of its own fate, the neoliberal sectors don't recognize free elections and denounce nonexisting frauds.”

Sala is an Indigenous leader of the Tupac Amaru neighborhood association where her work involved administering a public grant to build low-income housing in Argentina's northern province of Jujuy.

She was arrested last January on allegations of mishandling those funds and has been in jail ever since.

Sala denies anywrongdoing and says racism has played a key role in her detention. 

She also alleges that she has been tortured and received death threats.

Last year, the United Nations demanded the government release Sala, while the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention described her incarceration "arbitrary.”

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