MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maduro says maximum security prisons await protesters

Maduro also joked that the incarcerated protesters should be put to work to “build more roads”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced Thursday that two maximum security prisons were to be refurbished in haste to house and “reeducate” the political opponents of his regime who were arrested during the recent protests following his fudgy reelection last Sunday.

“I am preparing two prisons that I should have ready in 15 days, they are already being repaired,” Maduro said on nationwide TV. ”All the guarimberos (protesters) are going to Tocorón and Tocuyito, maximum security prisons,“ he added in reference to the two correctional facilities previously under the control of criminal gangs until last year.

The number of people arrested during the opposition demonstrations in Venezuela is growing by the hundreds per day and the figure is fast approaching two thousand since the last election Sunday, it was reported.

”We have more than 1,200 captured and we are looking for 1,000 more and we are going to catch them all, because they were trained in the United States, in Texas; in Colombia, in Peru, and in Chile,“ Maduro also argued. He also likened these protesters to the gangs in Haiti or Central American maras. ”They wanted to turn Venezuela into another Haiti,“ he insisted.

Maduro also joked that the incarcerated protesters should be put to work to ”build more roads.”

After the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Maduro's win by 51.2% of the vote against Edmundo González Urrutia's 44.2%, thousands of people took to the streets crying foul and demanding that the minutes of each polling table be disclosed.