Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been arrested after re-appearing in public for the first time in months a day before the third inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro.
A social media account for Comando Con Venezuela, the political opposition group Machado leads, reported the arrest on Thursday.
“Maria Corina Machado was violently intercepted while leaving the gathering in Chacao,” the opposition group wrote, adding that government forces “fired” at the motorcycles that were transporting her.
It has since announced Machado’s release, dismissing reports that the brief detention was false.
Maduro’s government quickly denounced the incident as an effort to dent the administration’s reputation.
“The tactic of media distraction is not new, so no one should be surprised. Less so coming from fascists who are the architects of deception,” Information Minister Freddy Nanez said on social media platform Telegram after the reports of Machado’s arrest emerged.
Machado has been in hiding in recent months, following a government crackdown on dissent in the wake of the contested July 28 presidential election.
But she made a public appearance on Thursday, after calling on supporters to protest in a last-ditch attempt to block Venezuela’s President Maduro from clinging to power. He is set to be sworn in for another six-year term on Friday.
“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united,” Machado, waving a Venezuelan flag, shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck before her arrest.
Demonstrators at the rally chanted, “We are not afraid! We are not afraid!” Many also sang the Venezuelan national anthem as a mark of defiance against Maduro’s government.
Waves of antigovernment protests broke out following the July 28 election, when the electoral authority declared Maduro the winner without releasing the usual breakdown of voting tallies.
The opposition called the result fraudulent and has instead published its own copies of the voting tallies online. It says that documentation proves its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, is the rightful winner.
The Maduro government has responded to the outcry with what critics have denounced as heavy-handed repression. More than 2,000 people were arrested and an estimated 25 people were killed in the post-election crackdown.
Maduro has also accused Machado of leading a conspiracy to topple him. In September, a court also issued a warrant for Gonzalez’s arrest.