Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s YouTube channel, used to publish speeches and clips from his weekly show on state TV channel Telesur, has been taken down amid rising tensions with the United States.
Telesur reported on X on Saturday night that Maduro’s channel had been “eliminated” the night before, without justification. The account had more than 200,000 followers before it went offline.
On YouTube’s website, the elimination of accounts occurs if the channel has committed “repeated violations of community guidelines”, including publishing hate speech, misinformation and content that “interferes with democratic process”.
Maduro has been accused of stealing last year’s presidential election, which, according to tally sheets gathered by opposition activists, he lost by a landslide.
The country’s election agency also never published tally sheets to support its claim that Maduro had won the election.
In the midst of his channel’s removal, the US has taken harsher steps towards Venezuela on immigration and drug trafficking.
On Saturday, Maduro wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump, rejecting that Venezuela played a significant role in drug trafficking and said only 5 percent of drugs produced in Colombia were shipped through his country, of which Venezuelan authorities neutralised 70 percent.
“President, I hope that together we can defeat the falsehoods that have sullied our relationship, which must be historic and peaceful,” Maduro wrote in the letter seen by the Reuters news agency.
“These and other issues will always be open for a direct and frank conversation with your special envoy [Richard Grenell] to overcome media noise and fake news.”
Maduro’s letter, dated September 6, was four days after a US strike on a vessel that the Trump administration claimed, without evidence, was carrying drug traffickers.
The attack killed 11 people, whom Trump alleged were members of the Tren de Aragua gang and engaged in drug trafficking. There have been questions over Trump’s claims, with suggestions that those on board that boat and others attacked were not involved in drug trafficking at all. Legal analysts have warned that the attacks amount to extrajudicial killings.
More recently, on Saturday, Trump announced that a third strike targeting a ship he claimed was “trafficking illicit narcotics” took place, which killed at least three people on board.
Washington has deployed seven warships, a nuclear-powered submarine and F-35 stealth fighters to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico, in the biggest US naval deployment in the Caribbean.
Trump says the military is engaged in an anti-drug operation, but has not provided specific evidence to back up claims that the boats targeted so far had actually been trafficking drugs.
Trump also threatened Venezuela on Saturday with “incalculable” consequences if the country does not “immediately” take back immigrants he described as “prisoners” and “people from mental institutions”.
Maduro has repeatedly claimed that the US is trying to drive him from power.
While Trump said last week that he was not interested in a Venezuelan regime change, last month, his administration doubled its reward for information on Maduro to $50m, accusing him of drug trafficking and links to criminal groups.
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