Seven foreign journalists arrested by dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro

Political tension in Venezuela has affected the foreign press: two French journalists, two Colombians and one Spanish are still in detention and two Chileans were expelled Wednesday after spending 14 hours in the custody of the authorities.

Three reporters from the Spanish agency EFE and a biker in his service were arrested Wednesday in Caracas, told AFP Nelida Fernandez, director of media in Venezuela.

It's about Colombians Leonardo Muñoz (photographer) and Mauren Barriga (cameraman) and Spanish reporter Gonzalo Domínguez, who arrived in Caracas from Bogotá on 24 January.

Barriga and Domínguez were in the hands of agents of the Bolivian intelligence services (Sebin) who were waiting for them at the hotel where they were, said Fernandez.

French diplomatic sources confirmed that French reporters Pierre Caillé and Baptiste des Monstiers de Quotidien, a highly-rated TV show from TMC, were shortlisted on Tuesday as they recorded footage around the Miraflores presidential palace.

Its producer, Rolando Rodríguez, was arrested with them, denounced the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) of Venezuela.

"The contact was lost with them" while they were covering a wake of support to President Nicolás Maduro, the union added.

"It's hard to say more at the risk of worsening their situation, we think of them," Daily's Twitter account reported.

Two reporters from Chilean TVN TVN were also arrested in the Miraflores neighborhood on Tuesday night. Rodrigo Pérez and Gonzalo Barahona, with Venezuelan communicators Maikel Yriarte and Ana Rodríguez, who accompanied them.

The Maduro government ordered the expulsion of Pérez and Barahona after "14 hours of unexplained detention," said Chilean Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero. Yriarte and Rodríguez had already been released.

Yriarte said the authorities claimed that the reporters were in a "safe area".

"That's what dictatorships do: trample on freedom of the press," Ampuero wrote on Twitter.

The EFE photographer was deprived of liberty when he went to cover the opposition protests in the west of Caracas.

Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo rejected the arrest and demanded his "immediate release". "We demand respect for life" Muñoz, he said on Twitter.

According to EFE, when it entered Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, which serves the capital, its collaborators "declared the journalistic work that they were going to carry out".

"They were taken away after asking them to collect their belongings and to badure me, as well as all the EFE lawyers, that we would be able to accompany them to the Sebin, which is not necessary. Did not arrive because they closed the fence when we tried to follow them, "Fernández said. .

The agents said they needed to "interrogate" them, he added.

"They will not stop the world from knowing what is happening in Venezuela," Guaidó said on Twitter, sending a message from Chilean President Sebastián Piñera in which he called for the "immediate release" of TVN's journalists.

Maduro says that he is the target of an ongoing international campaign to overthrow him, which he says is being used by major media companies.