New York City protest once again demands release of Maduro and Flores

Brooklyn, New York

In New York City on September 3, for the ninth month in a row, protesters rallied outside Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where the U.S. is holding Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores.

Since the bloody Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela, when U.S. forces killed 83 people and kidnapped Maduro and Flores, anti-imperialist groups have held protests every third day of the month outside the jail where Maduro and Flores are held. Their demand is that the Trump administration immediately release the two and return them to Venezuela.

September’s action was organized and attended by members of Black Alliance for Peace, Bronx Anti-War, Brooklyn Against War, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, International Action Center, Venceremos Brigade, Venezuela Solidarity Network and Workers World Party.

There is growing solidarity in other countries.  On July 22, dozens of members of the Mexican Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Fascist Front protested outside the United States Embassy in Mexico to demand the release of Maduro and Flores.

President Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, submitted two motions to the court on Sept. 2, with the goal of dismissing the frame-up charges completely. The first motion seeks to dismiss the entire accusation based on the sovereign immunity of Maduro as a head of state, based on customary international law.  The second seeks to dismiss the trumped-up charge of conspiracy for narcoterrorism.

The drug charges are widely viewed as laughable. Few people take seriously the idea that Venezuela was ever a source of cocaine or fentanyl. The narcoterrorism case against Maduro is so flimsy that it had to be rewritten post-kidnapping by Trump’s Justice Department with a new set of lies to justify the U.S. occupation of Venezuela.