The 2019 Venezuelan protests began in the first days of January as a result of the Venezuelan presidential crisis. Protests against the legitimacy of the Nicolás Maduro's presidency began at the time of his second inauguration following a controversial presidential election in 2018. Rallies of support were also held for President of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, with some Venezuelans and foreign government's recognizing him as the acting President of Venezuela.
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 Satellite images of a Guaidó rally on 2 February 2019, 11:05 AM VET | |
| Satellite images of a Maduro rally on 2 February 2019, 11:05 AM VET |
Censorship in Venezuela refers to all actions which can be considered as suppression in speech in the country. More recently, Reporters Without Borders ranked Venezuela 159th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index 2023 and classified Venezuela's freedom of information in the "very difficult situation" level.
Colectivos are far-left Venezuelan armed paramilitary groups that support the Bolivarian government, the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) political alliance and Venezuela's ruling party, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Colectivo has become an umbrella term for irregular armed groups that operate in poverty-stricken areas.
In 2014, a series of protests, political demonstrations, and civil insurrection began in Venezuela due to the country's high levels of urban violence, inflation, and chronic shortages of basic goods attributed to economic policies such as strict price controls. Mass protesting began in earnest in February following the attempted rape of a student on a university campus in San Cristóbal. Subsequent arrests and killings of student protesters spurred their expansion to neighboring cities and the involvement of opposition leaders. The year's early months were characterized by large demonstrations and violent clashes between protesters and government forces that resulted in nearly 4,000 arrests and 43 deaths, including both supporters and opponents of the government.
The 2017 Venezuelan protests began in late January following the abandonment of Vatican-backed dialogue between the Bolivarian government and the opposition. The series of protests originally began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created by the Venezuelan government though the size of protests had decreased since 2014. Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, protests began to increase greatly throughout Venezuela.
The Mother of All Marches, also known as the Mother of All Protests, was a day of protests held on April 19, 2017, in Venezuela against the Chavista government of president Nicolás Maduro. The protests began after the Supreme Tribunal of Justice dissolved the National Assembly and took over its legislative powers March 29, 2017 in what was called a self-coup. The dissolution of the National Assembly was reversed shortly thereafter on April 1, 2017.
The 2017 Venezuelan protests were a series of protests occurring throughout Venezuela. Protests began in January 2017 after the arrest of multiple opposition leaders and the cancellation of dialogue between the opposition and Nicolás Maduro's government.
2018 protests in Venezuela began in the first days of January as a result of high levels of hunger by desperate Venezuelans. Within the first two weeks of the year, hundreds of protests and looting incidents occurred throughout the country. By late-February, protests against the Venezuelan presidential elections occurred after several opposition leaders were banned from participating. Into March, the Maduro government began to crack down on military dissent, arresting dozens of high-ranking officials including former SEBIN director Miguel Rodríguez Torres.
The Lima Group is a multilateral body that was established following the Lima Declaration on 8 August 2017 in the Peruvian capital of Lima, where representatives of 12 countries met in order to establish a peaceful exit to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
Juan Gerardo Antonio Guaidó Márquez is a Venezuelan opposition politician. He belonged to the social-democratic party Popular Will, and was a federal deputy to the National Assembly representing the state of Vargas. On 23 January 2019, the National Assembly declared that he was acting president of Venezuela and Guaidó swore himself into office, starting the Venezuelan presidential crisis by challenging Nicolás Maduro's presidency. In December 2022, opposition parties voted to dismiss Guaidó as interim president, choosing Dinorah Figuera as a successor on 5 January 2023 and ending Guaidó's presidential claim.
The second inauguration of Nicolás Maduro as President of Venezuela took place on Thursday, 10 January 2019. The inauguration involved the swearing-in of Nicolás Maduro for his second term, and, especially within the context of Maduro's election, has been controversial and contested by various figures and organizations.
The Venezuelan presidential crisis was a political crisis concerning the leadership and the legitimate president of Venezuela between 2019 and 2023, with the nation and the world divided in support for Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó.
The 2019 Venezuelan protests were a collection of protests that were organized, since 11 January, as a coordinated effort to remove Nicolás Maduro from the presidency. Demonstrations began following Maduro's controversial second inauguration, developing into a presidential crisis between Maduro and National Assembly president Juan Guaidó. The protests also included counter-demonstrations organized by those who support Maduro.
During the presidential crisis between the Venezuelan governments of Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, a coalition of Colombia, Brazil, the United States and the Netherlands attempted to bring essential goods as a response to shortages in Venezuela. The three main bases used for the operation are: the Colombian city of Cúcuta, the Brazilian state of Roraima,, and the island of Curaçao, of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
During the Venezuelan presidential crisis concerning the legitimate President of Venezuela, reactions and responses to the crisis were greatly divided.
There has been censorship and media control during Venezuelan presidential crisis between 2019 and January 2023.
Defections from the Bolivarian Revolution occurred under the administrations of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis concerning who is the legitimate President of Venezuela has been underway since 10 January 2019, when the opposition-majority National Assembly declared that incumbent Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection was invalid and the body declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of the nation. Guaidó encouraged military personnel and security officials to withdraw support from Maduro, and offered an amnesty law, approved by the National Assembly, for military personnel and authorities who help to restore constitutional order.
On 30 April 2019, during the Venezuelan presidential crisis, a group of several dozen military personnel and civilians joined Juan Guaidó in his call for the removal of Nicolás Maduro as part of what he labeled "Operation Freedom". Reuters reported an "uneasy peace" by the afternoon of 30 April. During the unrest, opposition leader Leopoldo López was freed from house arrest after being imprisoned for five years. Manuel Cristopher Figuera, the head of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, denounced the Maduro government and was dismissed from his position before going into hiding. At least 25 military men who opposed Maduro sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy in Caracas.
The 2020 Venezuelan National Assembly Delegated Committee election was to be held in the ordinary session of the National Assembly on 5 January, in which 160 deputies were to elect the legislature's board of directors for the year 2020–21: the president, the first and second vice presidents, the secretary and the deputy secretary. It was the last such election of the IV National Assembly.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Venezuela was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first two cases in Venezuela were confirmed on 13 March 2020; the first death was reported on 26 March. However, the first record of a patient claiming to have symptoms of coronavirus disease dates back to 29 February 2020, with government officials suspecting that the first person carrying the virus could have entered the country as early as 25 February.
The 2020 Barquisimeto shooting occurred on 29 February 2020, when pro-government colectivos shot at the Speaker of the National Assembly of Venezuela Juan Guaidó and his supporters in Barquisimeto, Lara state during a demonstration, leaving ten injured.
