CARACAS: Rocio San Miguel, the Venezuelan lawyer and human rights activist whose arrest has prompted an international outcry, is a woman renowned for standing up to the country’s secretive and powerful military.She has for decades fearlessly criticized the government, speaking out against corruption and abuses, and notably getting under the skin of President Nicolas Maduro.”You all see how she skips, jumps, shrieks,” Maduro said in 2014 when he accused her of involvement in one of the many coup plots he has denounced against him.”Because she is a woman people are going to say, ‘Maduro attacks women’. I am not attacking her, I am merely mentioning her,” because her name came up in the investigation, he said.San Miguel, 57, was arrested last Friday in the immigration area of an airport in Caracas along with several family members who have since been freed on bail. On Wednesday, her lawyer said her home was being raided by authorities.Prosecutors accuse her of “treason” and “terrorism” over her alleged involvement in a more recent plot the government claimed to have uncovered to assassinate Maduro.Her ex-husband, a retired soldier, was also arrested and is being charged with allegedly revealing “political and military secrets.”International rights groups see in the arrests a coordinated plan to silence government critics and perceived opponents.
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