(Français)
For months before the Pentagon illegally kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their home in Caracas on Jan. 3, their special forces studied every detail of the couple’s daily routine: where and when they ate, slept, worked, visited, and obtained medical care.
So it is inconceivable that they did not know that Flores, 69, had undergone a hysterectomy one month before their bloody raid. She was still recovering and in a very fragile state with stitches when abducted with her husband and flown to New York to be jailed in an ice-cold prison cell. This is just one more example of Washington’s ruthless and cynical actions in the hemisphere.
Now, both Flores and Maduro are still held in Sunset Park’s austere Brooklyn Detention Center on New Yo
rk Harbor, where close to 40 demonstrators gathered on Oct. 3, nine months later, to protest their abduction and imprisonment, the ridiculously fraudulent charges against them, and Washington’s brutal trampling of international law. The action was called by United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), Workers World Party, Black Alliance for Peace, Venezuela Solidarity Network, CUNY for Palestine, and many other organizations.
The demonstrators’ principal demand was for Flores to be released into home detention.
In the spring, she suffered a probable heart attack. Flores told prison authorities that she wanted legal advice before undergoing any surgery.
But on May 21, “she was woken up and taken to a hospital without a chance to consult her lawyers, and she was informed that she would have to undergo heart surgery that day,” explained Briony Smith of Brooklyn Against War. Flores refused the surgery, and her condition is now worsening, while the U.S. government says it is her own fault.
The demonstrators called on all concerned justice-loving people to go to the Federal Courthouse at Baxter Street and Worth Street in Manhattan on Thu., Oct. 8 at 9:30 a.m. when the presiding judge will decide on whether to allow Flores to move from her harsh cellblock to a private residence where she would wear an ankle-bracelet until her trial begins on Jun. 1, 2027.
The demonstrators held up posters, banners, and flags on the corner of 29th Street and 3rd Ave., where many passing cars honked their approval for the action. The protestors then marched, loudly chanting, one block down to the Brooklyn Detention Center, briefly rallied there, and then marched back to 3rd Avenue.
The organizers asked people to call Judge Alvin Hellerstein at 212.805.0152 before the Oct. 8 hearing and to leave the following message or something like it in his voicemail:
“Cilia Flores was injured during the January 3rd U.S. attack. She is now suffering from a serious heart condition and deteriorating health, and her lawyers are seeking home detention in order for her to receive much needed medical care. I am calling on you to show the human decency, common sense, and respect of justice to grant the request for Cilia Flores to await her trial in an environment that will not aggravate her serious medical problems.”
