An Argentine journalist traveling to Venezuela to cover the elections on Sunday was banned from entering the country on the grounds that he “doesn’t meet the required criteria” and is now waiting to be deported at the Caracas airport.

Jorge Pizarro, who works for Radio Rivadavia, claimed was questioned over 10 times since arriving at the Maiquetía Simón Bolívar international airport on Thursday morning.

It all began when Pizarro was in the immigration control line and was asked for his passport. “A lady from the Public and Popular Ministry harshly interrogated me, without telling me why,” he told Radio Rivadavia while sitting at the airport café escorted by three guards.

An airport worker then asked him the same set of questions. Pizarro claims he felt threatened by a police officer who allegedly didn’t take kindly to his inquiries.

“That’s when I first understood what was going on,” Pizarro said. He was questioned another 10 times after that, he said. “They took 14 pictures of me, retained my passport, took me to an Isolation and Deportation office, and made me record a video.”

In the video, he was made to say who he was, why he wanted to enter Venezuela, and what he was supposed to be doing during his stay. However, he was still denied entry and restricted to the airport, with the three guards following him, awaiting for a flight back to Argentina.

Pizarro is now waiting to get on a COPA Airlines flight. He arrived in Venezuela on a flight from that same airline via Panama — President Nicolás Maduro has banned direct flights from Argentina.

“We strongly reject the detention and potential deportation of journalist Jorge Pizarro,” said the Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities (ADEPA, by its Spanish acronym) in a communiqué. “We call Venezuelan authorities to allow entry unconditionally to all journalists who are going to cover the elections in that country on Sunday.”

President Maduro will seek reelection for a third six-year term on Sunday. Unlike the 2018 elections, in which opposition did not to participate, this time there is a total of 10 candidates from different political sectors. The main opposition candidate is Edmundo González Urrutia, a former ambassador. He wasn’t the original intended candidate, but will run instead of María Corina Machado — she won the Democratic Union Platform primaries but was banned from participating in the presidential election.

These will be key elections for Venezuela, with the Maduro administration facing accusations of authoritarianism. There will be international auditors, but Brazil has announced it will no longer send any auditors after Maduro questioned the Brazilian electoral system. On Monday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on Maduro to respect the result after his Venezuelan counterpart said there would be a “bloodbath” if his party lost. 

Former Argentine President Alberto Fernández was going to be an auditor, but announced on X on Wednesday that the Venezuelan government had withdrawn the invitation.

“The reason I was given was that according to the government’s criteria, public statements I gave in a national media outlet were troubling and cast doubts on my impartiality,” said Fernández. “They understood that in conjunction with what [Lula] said the day before, this caused a sort of destabilizing effect on the electoral process.”

“I have to say that I don’t understand such discomfort,” he added. “All I said was that in a democracy, when the country votes, ‘whoever wins, wins and whoever loses, loses’ and should the current administration be defeated, it had to accept that popular verdict. Same with the opposition if the result didn’t go their way.”

https://x.com/alferdez/status/1816150312991760699