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CARACAS, (Reuters) – Opposition lawmaker and oncologist Jose Manuel Olivares, who led protests over Venezuela's crumbling health sector, said he said the crisis-stricken country quit politics
Olivares joins the growing ranks of opposition activists who have been forced into exile, arrested, or arrested by politicians President Nicolas Maduro's crackdown on dissent
In a letter tweeted late on Thursday, Olivares said he was forced to leave, had been threatened.
"My brother had already received threats last year, and was still locked up in the agency) SEBIN for several months. Now, my wife, mother, and my brother received threats once again. They were warned that they would be persecuted and accused if I wrote in the name of "Olivares wrote, without describing the nature of the threats."
The lawmaker, who represented the coastal state of Vargas, was at the forefront of protests decrying medicine shortages, crumbling health infrastructure, and mbad emigration of doctors. He also helped to organize research into the state of the hospital (19659002) "Maduro's government thinks that with this persecution they hurt me or weaken me, but it is the complete opposite." Olivares wrote. "They are the ones exposing themselves, because of their evil and cowardice as they persecute my family and newborn sound, because of the fear they have of people protesting and demanding their rights."
Olivares requests for information about his whereabouts. Venezuela's Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Maduro says the opposition is a blow-plotting, Washington-backed elite seeking to topple him under the guise of peaceful protests. His government says the financial downturn is due to an "economic war" waged by his enemies.
Most economists instead blame shortages, hyperinflation, and five straight years of economic contraction on Venezuela's creaking state-led system.
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