MEPs Hermann Tertsch and Jorge Martín Frías manage to meet with Venezuelan political prisoner Perkins Rocha despite the regime's restrictions

MEPs Hermann Tertsch and Jorge Martín Frías overcame restrictions imposed by the regime's police officers to visit Venezuelan lawyer and political prisoner Perkins Rocha. The day before, the lawmakers from Spain's Vox party were denied access, in what clearly demonstrates how the Venezuelan regime maintains its authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies, despite the concessions it has been forced to make since coming under the supervision of the Trump administration, following the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro on January 3.

Shortly after 15 officers from the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) prevented them from entering, Tertsch told the newspaper El Nacional in an interview that the officers deployed around the perimeter offered no legal basis for denying access. The MEP interpreted the police deployment as a sign of resistance by the repressive apparatus in the face of Venezuela's political transition. "They said we couldn't enter. No further explanation(...) These are the totalitarian death throes of a regime in its final stages," Tertsch stated when assessing the ban on direct contact with Rocha, who is Machado's attorney.

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News of this Friday's meeting was revealed by the Human Rights Committee of the political party Vente Venezuela, led by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who recently returned to the country after nearly a year in exile. "Despite the obstacles and the arbitrary behavior of the police officers, MEPs Hermann Tertsch and Jorge Martín Frías were able to enter to meet with attorney and judge Perkins Rocha this Friday afternoon," the committee wrote via its official X account.

The MEPs arrived in Venezuela on Wednesday accompanied by journalist Orlando Avendaño, who was returning to the country after nine years in exile. Upon arrival, the European delegation stated that the purpose of their visit was to gain firsthand knowledge of the political situation and the conditions facing the Venezuelan opposition, as well as to offer assistance with the democratic transition process currently underway in the country.