Venezuelan opposition parties and NGOs decried the arrests of a prominent press freedom activist and a well-known opposition figure, among others, ahead of planned protests against Friday's inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro for his third term.

Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia has urged the Venezuelan military to recognize him as their commander-in-chief and “put an end to the leadership” of President Nicolás Maduro,

The son-in-law of exiled Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González has been kidnapped. "Rafael was on his way to my seven and six-year-old grandchildren's school in Caracas to drop them off at the start of class when he was abducted by masked men dressed in black,