Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
South America - Blog Posts
Ruined bridge above glacial waters in Bariloche, Argentina
Sand castle on Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Under the iceberg, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Argentina
by JP and Marguerite on Flickr.Ciudad Perdida ruins in the middle of the colombian jungle - Santa Marta Mountains, Colombia.
ARGENTINA JUST MADE HISTORY.
The first protest for legal abortion in democracy in Argentina was on March 7, 1984. 36 years later, December 30, 2020 at 04:13 am, abortion is now officially legal, safe and free for all women. Women have fought for so long to obtain rights of this kind. This is a HUGE step for us, what an amazing day. EL ABORTO ES LEGAL 💚
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” — Audre Lorde
i remember the heat like i remember my own name.
i live in florida now, mind u, so im not unfamiliar with the heat but...it's a different kind of heat.
men carrying water jugs over to the local mercado to refill for their homes, sometimes making five or more trips to do so, because sometimes the running water in the favelas either stops working or runs dirty, and the sweating from the weather is not a scent u want ur house to be filled with. families walking around the city covering themselves with parasols and cobertorinhos to buy groceries and whatnot. children running down to the river to bathe and swim not necessarily just for fun but because that was the only way to cool down. women hanging up wet clothes to dry between as varandas das ruas, sitting shirtless on their balconies because inside is almost hotter. our seasons are different from North America's because they are switched around, so "winter" hits in June/July/August for us -- it's very similar to florida though, in the sense that we pretty much have two seasons -- summer and less summer. i have vivid memories of running down to the beach with my cousins in my father's hometown of Iguape, just outside of São Paulo, naked as the day we were born and jumping into the sea to feel the cool relief away from the blazing heat.
this heat has killed over 48,000 people (source link) from 2000-2018, and climate change is only going to make it worse. in 2023, the country recorded its hottest temperature ever at 44.8°C -- that is 112.6°F. in g20climaterisks.org's article recounts a study done about climate change and its impact in Brasil in a projected 2050-2100 timeline - the study predicts heat wave/heat-related excess deaths will increase by 854%. when Gomes da Silva describes the feeling of being able to breathe again, it is no exaggeration.
green roofs have been around since the 60s, its nothing new. in fact, as Cassiano said, what would be considered the Brasilian "1%" has already planned and built homes with green roofs and has been doing so for quite a while. it has taken this long to get to a point where it's semi-accessible to the general public, and it does not cost as much to us in the US as it does to those in Brasil -- this is an amazing development but there is still more work to be done. for example, this spring is odd to floridians since it feels like its fucking July, but thats because florida's in a fucking drought right now -- there have been 17 wildfires as of April 22nd, only one of which that was contained (and only 70% contained at that). green roofs wouldnt kill the problem entirely, but i would really like to see this or some version of this in the United States while i'm still living.
Pictured: Luis Cassiano is the founder of Teto Verde Favela, a nonprofit that teaches favela residents in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, how to build their own green roofs as a way to beat the heat. He's photographed at his house, which has a green roof.
Article
"Cassiano is the founder of Teto Verde Favela, a nonprofit that teaches favela residents how to build their own green roofs as a way to beat the heat without overloading electrical grids or spending money on fans and air conditioners. He came across the concept over a decade ago while researching how to make his own home bearable during a particularly scorching summer in Rio.
A method that's been around for thousands of years and that was perfected in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, green roofs weren't uncommon in more affluent neighborhoods when Cassiano first heard about them. But in Rio's more than 1,000 low-income favelas, their high cost and heavy weight meant they weren't even considered a possibility.
That is, until Cassiano decided to team up with a civil engineer who was looking at green roofs as part of his doctoral thesis to figure out a way to make them both safe and affordable for favela residents. Over the next 10 years, his nonprofit was born and green roofs started popping up around the Parque Arará community, on everything from homes and day care centers, to bus stops and food trucks.
When Gomes da Silva heard the story of Teto Verde Favela, he decided then and there that he wanted his home to be the group's next project, not just to cool his own home, but to spread the word to his neighbors about how green roofs could benefit their community and others like it.
Pictured: Jessica Tapre repairs a green roof in a bus stop in Benfica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Relief for a heat island
Like many low-income urban communities, Parque Arará is considered a heat island, an area without greenery that is more likely to suffer from extreme heat. A 2015 study from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro showed a 36-degree difference in land surface temperatures between the city's warmest neighborhoods and nearby vegetated areas. It also found that land surface temperatures in Rio's heat islands had increased by 3 degrees over the previous decade.
That kind of extreme heat can weigh heavily on human health, causing increased rates of dehydration and heat stroke; exacerbating chronic health conditions, like respiratory disorders; impacting brain function; and, ultimately, leading to death.
But with green roofs, less heat is absorbed than with other low-cost roofing materials common in favelas, such as asbestos tiles and corrugated steel sheets, which conduct extreme heat. The sustainable infrastructure also allows for evapotranspiration, a process in which plant roots absorb water and release it as vapor through their leaves, cooling the air in a similar way as sweating does for humans.
The plant-covered roofs can also dampen noise pollution, improve building energy efficiency, prevent flooding by reducing storm water runoff and ease anxiety.
"Just being able to see the greenery is good for mental health," says Marcelo Kozmhinsky, an agronomic engineer in Recife who specializes in sustainable landscaping. "Green roofs have so many positive effects on overall well-being and can be built to so many different specifications. There really are endless possibilities.""
Pictured: Summer heat has been known to melt water tanks during the summer in Rio, which runs from December to March. Pictured is the water tank at Luis Cassiano's house. He covered the tank with bidim, a lightweight material conducive for plantings that will keep things cool.
A lightweight solution
But the several layers required for traditional green roofs — each with its own purpose, like insulation or drainage — can make them quite heavy.
For favelas like Parque Arará, that can be a problem.
"When the elite build, they plan," says Cassiano. "They already consider putting green roofs on new buildings, and old buildings are built to code. But not in the favela. Everything here is low-cost and goes up any way it can."
Without the oversight of engineers or architects, and made with everything from wood scraps and daub, to bricks and cinder blocks, construction in favelas can't necessarily bear the weight of all the layers of a conventional green roof.
That's where the bidim comes in. Lightweight and conducive to plant growth — the roofs are hydroponic, so no soil is needed — it was the perfect material to make green roofs possible in Parque Arará. (Cassiano reiterates that safety comes first with any green roof he helps build. An engineer or architect is always consulted before Teto Verde Favela starts a project.)
And it was cheap. Because of the bidim and the vinyl sheets used as waterproof screening (as opposed to the traditional asphalt blanket), Cassiano's green roofs cost just 5 Brazilian reais, or $1, per square foot. A conventional green roof can cost as much as 53 Brazilian reais, or $11, for the same amount of space.
"It's about making something that has such important health and social benefits possible for everyone," says Ananda Stroke, an environmental engineering student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who volunteers with Teto Verde Favela. "Everyone deserves to have access to green roofs, especially people who live in heat islands. They're the ones who need them the most." ...
It hasn't been long since Cassiano and the volunteers helped put the green roof on his house, but he can already feel the difference. It's similar, says Gomes da Silva, to the green roof-covered moto-taxi stand where he sometimes waits for a ride.
"It used to be unbearable when it was really hot out," he says. "But now it's cool enough that I can relax. Now I can breathe again."
-via NPR, January 25, 2025
by Mackeson on Flickr.Making Sense of the Abyss, view from Machu Picchu, Peru.
I'm tired.
Interpretation: ''They [the Chavista Government] told Public Employees that Edmundo [Opposition Leader who works with María Corina Machado] was going to fire them.
But who is firing their personnel for having a picture [against the Government*] in their WhatsApp Status, an Instagram History [*], or for protesting by slamming pots together in their homes (Cacerolazo: it's a non-violent way to show your discontent). I've received many DMs with the same complain."
Interpretation: "EVERY SINGLE ONE of the pensioned elderly in my neighborhood were taken out of the food box program. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
The bloodbath promised by @NicolasMaduro includes the stomach of the elderly."
(...) dirigentes opositores). Han despedido personal administrativo, gerencial, pilotos y aeromozas. En el INAC: lista negra armada por el gerente general de Seguridad Aeronáutica. Día después de las elecciones todos los empleados tuvieron que publicar fotos apoyando a Maduro, quien no lo hizo fue amenazado. Obligados empleados a ir a trabajar durante manifestaciones opositoras. A los empleados los han obligado a borrar WhatsApp y migrar a WeChat.
Interpretation: ''Public Employees from CONVIASA (Venezuelan Airline) and the INAC (Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil, aka, the National Institute of Civil Aviation) report:
More than 190 wrongful dismissals by CONVIASA, 5 wrongful dismissals by INAC.
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They're firing employees for expressing the slightless bit of approval towards the opposition (as in leaving a like in an Instagram Page of an Opposition leader).
They've fired management and administrative personnel, pilots and flight attendants.
In the INAC: a black list was created by the CEO. The day after the elections, all employees were forced to publish pictures where they showed their support for Maduro, those who refused were threatened.
They forced their employees to go to work the days when opposition demonstrations were taking place.
The employees have been forced to delete WhatsApp and download and use WeChat.''
.
.
And many more. There have been reports of wrongful dismissals by DAKA, Metro de Caracas, SENIAT, among others.
Interpretation: ''The Regime's paramilitary organization (i. e. Colectivos) is marking with an X the houses of those who have protested by banging pots together in their homes (Cacerolazo: it's a non-violent way to show your discontent) since July 29, 2024.
Now is it a crime to hit a pan? What kind of fuckery is this''
Edni López, Human Rights activist, was conditionally released on August 9, 2024. She cannot travel out of the country and must appear in court once a month. Is this justice? Is this fair?
Now, let's hope for the release of a thousand (there's more than that) other Venezuelans who were unlawfully imprisoned these past few days.
Personal thoughts: Well, guess who's not taking a plane anywhere until things calm down because her face was captured in HD by a Government-owned drone? This girl, maybe.
Interpretation: ''A person I know, who was travelling from Venezuela to Chile today, told me that they delayed their flight for 3 hours while officers searched photo by photo (I think they meant, person by person) those who had been in the protests/demonstrations. (Those who had been in the protests) were told to get off the plane and then they annulled their passports.
You can't even leave the country.
We're like hostages.''
Interpretation: ''Abductions and unlawful detainments continue to take place in Venezuela. According to a source, this took place yesterday, August 9, 2024 in Maracay, Aragua.''
In the video, a senior citizen, identified as Orlando by the person who was recording the video, was abducted by unidentified, uniformed ''members'' of the DIP (División de Investigaciones Penales).
Their vehicle was also unidentified.
Last week started in Venezuela with a moment that combined Berlin Wall spontaneity and a French Revolutionary spirit. Very late in the evening of Sunday, July 28, the government refused to recognize the opposition’s victory in that day’s election and declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the winner. The next day, protests broke out nearly everywhere: A think tank counted more than 200. In Coro, a small coastal city, a protester climbed up a statue of Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s late predecessor and mentor, and hammered his signature military beret as others cheered. When he got down, the crowd tied ropes around the statue and celebrated as it collapsed. What they wanted, in the words of a Venezuelan commentator, was to see Chávez’s head “dragged through the dirt.” Also last Monday, a man waving a Venezuelan flag rode a horse onto the highway outside the city of Maracay. He was leading a caravan of motorists and screaming “Venezuela libre.” In Punto Fijo, in the country’s west, a police officer burst into tears, took off her uniform, and joined the protesters she’d been assigned to intimidate. Some of her colleagues on the scene followed suit. Elsewhere in the country, the police did follow orders: Nearly 750 anti-government demonstrators were arrested that day. Six were killed.
Not long ago, Venezuela’s greatest lover of grand, revolutionary gestures was Chávez himself. Chávez was the one who embraced the image of a freedom lover on a horse—the independence hero Simón Bolívar, whose name Chávez appended to everything he wished to assert control over: the Bolivarian national bank, the Bolivarian army, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Chávez delighted in toppling the monuments of the ruling class, although the ruling class he rebelled against was not the type to build statues. Instead, he expropriated jewelry stores and shopping malls in the name of socialist revolution. Chávez understood the power of symbols. He held onto the presidency not just because the oil boom of the 2000s allowed him to lavish subsidies on the poor, but also because he was an exceptionally gifted populist. That doesn’t mean Chávez had qualms about using force. He closed opposition TV channels, imprisoned less-than-subservient judges, and played dictator as needed. But he preferred to win elections, because he could. In 2012, the year before his death, he spent more on his reelection campaign and short-lived social programs than any other president in Venezuela’s history—buying, with public money, the popular support that would ensure the continuity of his legacy through his heir, Maduro.
More than a decade later, a humanitarian crisis has turned a quarter of Venezuela’s population into emigrants, and Maduro seems to have decided that popular support is a luxury he can do without. To stay in power, he must have concluded some time ahead of the election, repression would have to suffice. His charisma certainly wasn’t going to win him the votes he needed. And with the country’s oil industry in decrepit shape, Maduro could hardly have afforded the grandiose presidential campaigns of his predecessor, or the generous food baskets doled out only during election years. He went for the cheaper option: scaring activists, opposition leaders, and everyday people into voting a certain way by showing them that those who don’t can wind up in prison. Distant observers of Venezuelan politics might have thought it obvious that Maduro was never going to recognize the election results. But some Venezuelan academics and political leaders I interviewed before the vote were convinced, or maybe hopeful, that Maduro would acquiesce if the opposition victory was overwhelming. Even dictatorships need some level of popular support, they argued. Perhaps military leaders would see the results and calculate that Maduro’s collapse was imminent. Perhaps they would be willing to negotiate a deal with the opposition, leaving the regime exposed. The opposition victory was overwhelming. In the hours after the election, María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition, coordinated more than 600,000 volunteer poll watchers in an effort to obtain the vote tallies from poll centers throughout the country. By last Monday afternoon—after the crowd had toppled the Chávez statue and the man on horseback waved Venezuela’s flag—Machado confirmed what everyone knew. In a press conference, she announced that, having obtained the tallies from 80 percent of the polling stations, she could say with certainty that opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González—the man who substituted for Machado on the ticket when Maduro forbade her from running—had won by a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote. González had won in every single state, despite the fact that only a few months earlier no one knew his name.
The opposition was exhilarated; Monday felt like the sprouting of a revolution. But Maduro, undaunted, swiftly cracked down. Almost immediately, the internet began failing more than usual. By the Thursday after election day, the government had suspended the most common flights out of the country. Low-profile protesters began getting arrested in what government officials informally called Operation Knock-Knock. (“It’s called knock-knock because that’s the bang on the door you get in the early hours of the morning,” an activist told Reuters.) The organization Foro Penal has verified more than 1,200 people have been arrested in protests since the election, including about 100 teenagers. Maduro announced that two new maximum-security prisons would be built in order to accommodate “the gangs engaged in the criminal attacks of these past few days”—meaning the protesters. Maduro has few friends left in the region. The only country in South America to recognize his electoral victory was Bolivia. Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and the United States have all recognized Edmundo González as president-elect. Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia are awkwardly situated, because they’re governed by fellow left-wing leaders, but even they have asked Maduro to supply the detailed, tabulated results of the election, which Maduro hasn’t done. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, a longtime buddy of Chávez’s, expressed outrage at Maduro’s threats of a “bloodbath” to those challenging him but has so far stopped short of using words like “fraud.” Nothing further can be asked of the opposition leadership; Machado and González have pulled off something extraordinary. On the campaign trail, they faced every imaginable difficulty: Their staffers were thrown in jail; state-controlled media refused them airtime; gasoline stations and hotels were closed for supplying services to them. Yet the pair rallied crowds in the most remote corners of the country, places only Chávez had previously galvanized. When Maduro banned Machado from running for president, the opposition could have been derailed by intrigue and succession battles; instead it coalesced behind González, a career diplomat who comes across not as a power-hungry schemer but as someone happy to help. In the past 25 years, the opposition has used three different tactics to challenge Chávez and Maduro: elections, protests, and international support. Never before have all three strategies gathered so much momentum, or come together so effectively all at the same time. Just about a week ago, when so many preconditions seemed to be finally aligning to bring the dictatorship to its end, the moment seemed full of hope. But if, with all of that serendipity, the Venezuelan opposition does not triumph, then maybe Maduro will be proved right that dictatorship can be sustained indefinitely with repression alone.
No sources because I'm typing this on my phone from where I'm sitting on the bathroom floor, but tldr there are three major things that need to happen for Maduro to step down:
The election results are so overwhelmingly in favor of the opposition that Maduro can't smudge the numbers, and it's obvious to the world that the election was unfair. This is done! Venezuelans came out in force to vote, and Edmundo may have won as much as 70% of the vote! The Venezuelans have given Maduro a mandate that is impossible to deny.
The opposition and neighboring countries give Maduro a path out with amnesty. This one is the peak of injustice, but it's extremely unlikely Maduro will step down if he knows he'll be immediately arrested and sent to the Hague. This is likely why Brazil, Colombia, and the US have had such tepid, slow reactions so far- they're going to want to plan together at OAS how negotiations will happen before acting too rashly.
The military has to abandon Maduro. In all countries, the military is the ultimate arbitrator of elections. Venezuela's military has stood by Maduro so far, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll continue to back him if it becomes clear that he can't continue to pay them the money they're used to. In addition, though it's less likely, even if the generals back Maduro, the rank-and-file troops may not- a lot of them are sick of Maduro as well, and they may choose to essentially go on strike.
The Venezuelan people have done their part and are still doing it. Now everyone else just needs to support them.
I accidentally lost the post that contained this article - but please read if you're outside of Venezuela and want to engage with us in good faith.
Partido Comunista de Venezuela (Venezuelan Communist Party)
PCV: Defending the constitution and the rule of law is not facism. The Venezuelan Communist Party denounced on Tuesday that the leadership of the PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela - Venezuelan United Socialist Party) Government is carrying out "a policy of terror in the popular sectors of the country" that is fueled "with psychological and propaganda operations" that aim "not only to neutralize popular protests but to impose a dangerous matrix of opinion in which defending the sovereignty of the people is the same as being fascist."
Full statement here: (X)
--
yes, even venezuelan communists want maduro out and believe he is illegitimately claiming power
in the week following the elections in venezuela the government has:
Announced his (Maduro's) win by a margin of 600k votes when there were still supposed to be over 2M votes to count
Refused to give the detailed election data as our constitution indicates he should, in the estimated time (72H)
Arrested 2,000 people (Including dozens of minors, the youngest known being a 13 years old girl) AND bragged about doing so, claiming they would arrest thousands more
Killed about 19 people (including Isaias Fuenmayor, a 15 years old who was SHOT IN THE NECK)
Created an online system for their supporters to report their neighbors to the police
Installed police checkpoints where they take your phone and check your social media activity
Declared that they will build 2 maximum security prisons in 15 days to "re-educate protestors", and "putting them to work on the streets for free". This is from the same government that claims to not have money due to the sanctions to better the infrastructure of public services all over the country. It's also Ironic, for a president who claimed chavistas were "the jews of the 21st century".
Ordered the capture of main opposition leaders
Cut off diplomatic relations with 9 Latin American countries who demanded democracy
Detained and deported multiple news-workers from outside of the country, who confirmed in the detention cells with them and other adults there were multiple minors
Fired government employees suspected of voting for the opposition
Annulled the passports of suspected Venezuelan freedom activists
And you still have people all over the global north claiming it's "just a socialist government being attacked by the far right"
I really hope yall are aware of what you're supporting
Maduro blocked twitter in Venezuela, saying it’s violating laws by letting people share information.
they're trying to censor us while taking over 2000 kidnapped people to torture chambers, over a hundred minors too. The government hasn't build a hospital in the past decade, yet he ordered to build two new prisons equipped for torture btw.
For the people (if you can call them that) that STILL think Maduro is good just cuz he said "free palestine" or because he's against the US gov let me give a few things to consider gov funded HOSPITALS here don't have basic medical equipment, if you need treatment, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BRING EVERYTHING from syringes. gauze, pillows,bed sheets, sutures everything. and these are hospitals that mostly treat people with lower income with no insurance. meanwhile the gov officials and all the enchufados who suck the country dry live in multi million dollar mansions or live in foreign countries in luxury. minimum wage is 130$ or even less monthly and the gov keeps pushing $ as a currency to the point most gov offices will try to make you pay in dollars instead on OUR national currency. If you want to buy food, pay bills, buy meds,etc those are all based on how the $ is at the time. you cry about "BUT US WANTS YOUR OIL!" China has inverted $50.000MILLIONS in exchange for petrol guess where all those MILLIONS are now? if you said to help the country you'll be wrong they are in the pockets of Maduro and the rest of them, the rest of the country sees a tiny fraction of it put into repairs if you can call those repairs OR the most common one money laundry in the form of HUGE building or stores. theres a thing called "contribuyentes especiales" it basically means a store, company, etc needs to pay a special kind of taxes to the Gov, those huge stores don't pay those taxes BUT a store thats basically closed down except for 3 workers and a single truck, that store is required to pay those taxes. the list goes on and on. Oh btw we have OIL shortages on top of that. theres 2 types of gas stations ONE thats international which cost more depending on international $ prices and the other type is the subsidiada or the one based on our currency, that one is payed USING YOUR FINGER PRINTS and people need to get up as early as 4AM to get in line to get it in some places and those lines can be MILES long and people run the risk of getting to the station and there be no gas left in it. SO TELL US AGAIN HOW "GOOD" A FUCKING DICTATOR IS
YET ANOTHER VENEZUELA POST
THIS ONE'S HILARIOUS
Seriously guys, they're not even trying. A National Assembly (that's what we call congress) deputy (that's what we call congresspeople) and third party candidate for Last Sunday's election, Jose Brito went on Venezuelan news network Globovision (which was bought out by government cronies in 2013, but that's another story) to defend the electoral results posted by the government. You can see the clip here:
Community note on twitter says everything but why would you willingly go to twitter when a sexy Canadian/Venezuelan man can explain this to you instead? Ok so what happened is that he got one of those paper receipts the voting machines print and he alleged that his was the real one and it contradicted one of the opposition's.
I've been saying for days that the only thing the government needs to do in order to cast doubt about the opposition's entire evidence base is literally to show receipts. Literally just one, which could be shown to contradict any of the opposition's posted receipts and could be authenticated. There's a series of authentication tools that are printed on each receipt which essentially make these difficult to fake, not to mention there would be a long paper trail backing the authenticity of one set next to the others. The hash-code at the top is based on some information in a server we don't currently have access to. From what I understand the hash is meant to show that the results on the receipt match the results in the tabulation servers. If they altered the results on the receipt they would have to alter results in the servers as well to correct that discrepancy and that would print a different hash code. We don't have access to the tabulation server cause it's controlled by the government and they refuse to show shit (and they are claiming the digital count is compromised anyway). Thankfully there's other paper trails that can be compared to the receipts the opposition are showing to verify their authenticity as well as copies and photos that were taken of them on the day of the election and videos of poll watchers reading out the receipts as well. And of course there's direct testimony from the Poll Watchers themselves.
None of that third party fancy shmancy verification and long process needs to be done in order to disprove that this receipt is fake, however. The receipts also have a QR code which shows the ID of the voting machine which printed it as well as the vote count for that voting center. It is formatted as [voting_machine_ID]![party1_votes],[party2_votes],[party3_votes]... and so on. Must be noted that multiple parties can nominate the same candidate and the votes for each party that nominates a candidate are added together in the final count.
The opposition's receipt that corresponds to the one showed by Jose Brito on TV was this one.
If you scan the QR Code, you will see that the code matches the results on the receipt posted by the opposition originally and does not at all match his own. This shows that the receipt he's holding was altered digitally, in quite a lazy fashion as well. Falsifying a QR Code isn't very hard it would've looked fairly authentic had he done that and pasted it on the thing while he was photoshopping this.
So to summarize
All they had to do was show exactly one receipt that could be authenticated or hell even reasonably believed to be authentic on first glance in order to cast doubt on their integrity.
After almost a week and a half of showing no copies of the receipts they should have in their possession one of them decides to show one and it turns out to be FAKE.
If the government's results hadn't been suspect until now they definitely are now. And all because they were too lazy to fake a QR Code with Photoshop. This is so funny dude. The politics fandom is laughing so hard.
in the wave of detantions happening in venezuela, one of the latest we have been informed off is the detainment of Yendri Velásquez
Yendri is one of Venezuela's MOST RENOWNED LGBTQ+ activists -he's the director of the Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia LGBTIQ+ (The Venezuelan Obstervatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence"), and he was actually in his way to an interracial comitee by the UN. He was in the Maiquetía airport, and when they checked his passport they told him it had been made null
he informed his family then that he was being approached by two individuals at 3PM local time, and that's the last they have known of him
once again: Yendri was not doing anything but being on his way to an international event by the UN. and still he was taken away by the security at the airport and no one knows where he is.
when we say that supporting Maduro is supporting tirany and hate THIS is what we mean
THERE'S NO LQBT RIGHTS IN VENEZUELA
THERE'S NO PROTECTED RIGHT TO ABORTION IN VENEZUELA
THERE'S NO PROTECTION TO NATIVE AMERICANS IN VENEZUELA
THERE'S NO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN VENEZUELA: PEOPLE ARE BEING PUT IN JAIL FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS SHOWING THEIR DISAGREEMENT WITH THE GOVERNMENT
MADURO SAID "FREE PALESTINE" ONCE, WHILE PUTTING MONEY ON ISRAEL'S POCKETS AND BUYING SURVEY SYSTEMS TESTED IN GAZA BY ISRAEL
MADURO SAID HE WILL BUILD MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISIONS TO "RE-EDUCATE" THOSE WHO PROTEST, AND PUT THEM TO DO FREE LABOR WITHOUT CHANCE OF PAROLE (HEY BUD? THAT'S A CONCENTRATION CAMP)
MADURO DOES NOT STAND FOR THE SHIT THAT YALL THINK HE STANDS
military under maduro's regime showed up at the house of María Oropeza, the local coordinator of the Vente Venezuela opposition group in Portuguesa, and took her away with no warrant, no pretense of legality, no nothing.
she managed to stream live on instagram, and people recorded the screen so it wouldnt be lost.
over a thousan venezuelans have been detained, many under similar circumstances
this is NOT normal and NOT ok
Help Me and My Family Escape a Violent Dictatorship!!!
I am writing this with a heavy heart, living each day in fear, knowing that my voice could be silenced at any moment. In Venezuela, speaking the truth has become a crime. I have risked everything to expose the brutal reality of forced detentions and the mass killings of innocent civilians, and now, the regime is coming for me and my family. We are trapped in a country that no longer respects human life, where the walls are closing in on us.
Every day is a battle for survival as we face persecution for daring to stand up against a violent dictatorship. The government has made it clear: dissent will not be tolerated, and they are determined to silence those who speak out. My only hope now is to flee, to escape with my family before it’s too late. But freedom comes at a price. We need to secure passports and cover other critical expenses to make our escape possible. The cost of each passport is $216 an amount that might seem small, but in our circumstances, it’s insurmountable without your help.
This is not just a plea for financial support; it’s a cry for survival. Every dollar you contribute brings us one step closer to safety, to a life where we can live without fear of being hunted down for our beliefs. Your generosity could be the difference between life and death for us. Please, if you can find it in your heart, help us escape this nightmare. Share our story, donate if you can, and stand with us in our fight for freedom… Your support is not just a donation, it’s a lifeline. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
(YOU CAN HELP ME SHARING THIS POST, LIKING IT, AND GIVING VISIBILITY PLEASE!!!)