Édgar Ramírez hasn’t traveled home to Venezuela in about seven years.
“I can’t because I’m vocal against Maduro and the government,” the actor told me Tuesday at the “Borderlands” premiere in Hollywood just minutes after he posed on the red carpet holding the Venezuelan flag. “It hurts. The capital punishment for the ancient Greeks wasn’t death — it was exile. You turn into an emotional zombie in a way. The pain of having to leave your country not because you want to, but because you’re forced to do it. That’s why the immigration issue is so delicate because no one — no one! — wants to leave home. You want to see the world but no one wants to leave the world that they know.”
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Protests erupted in Venezuela shortly after President Nicolás Maduro declared he won reelection on July 28 over Edmundo González Urrutia. Maduro’s critics — including the U.S. government — accused him of trying to steal the election, insisting that Urrutia won the popular vote by a wide margin.
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“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement (via CNN).
“In addition, the United States rejects Maduro’s unsubstantiated allegations against opposition leaders. Maduro and his representatives’ threats to arrest opposition leaders, including Edmundo González and María Corina Machado, are an undemocratic attempt to repress political participation and retain power,” Blinken added.
Ramírez said he is worried about family and friends living in Venezuela. “We have been in the streets. We have done everything to exercise the system that we were all raised with, which is a democratic system,” he said. “This regime just spits in the face of Venezuelans. They stole the election. They’re refusing to show the receipts and all the proof that we have. It’s a terrible precedent for the entire region.”
He continued, “Of course we are scared. We are all scared. They are cracking down on people. As of today 22 people have been killed, over 1,000 have been forcefully detained and basically kidnapped. It’s horrible that it’s happening in today’s world. I think Americans really need to pay attention to what is happening in Venezuela.”
