Overview
- Security forces set up checkpoints in Caracas and other cities, stopping people, ordering them out of vehicles, and searching phones for messages backing U.S. attacks or Maduro’s capture.
- The measure authorizes the identification, detention, and criminal prosecution of individuals accused of promoting or supporting U.S. military action against Venezuela.
- The order mobilizes the armed forces, places critical infrastructure under military control, and permits requisitions, border closures, and possible suspension of public assemblies for an initial 90 days with potential extension.
- Press groups reported detentions of media workers during operations, with 14 journalists briefly held and one deported, and CNN correspondent Stefano Pozzebon detained and expelled to Colombia.
- Legal questions intensified after the decree appeared signed by Nicolás Maduro even as the Supreme Tribunal named Rodríguez interim president, with legislative and judicial review expected but unlikely to curb the order.