His Two Hands in the Shape of a Heart
Aug 18, 2024
Paul León works for VPItv, an online news channel based in Caracas. He was arrested while he was preparing to cover a demonstration in Valera, state of Trujillo. In a virtual hearing, a special Caracas court charged him with terrorism. He is now the fourth press worker to be put behind bars after the July 28 presidential elections.
PHOTOS: FAMILY ALBUM“Dear parents, grandparents, Aunt Mari, siblings, and Daniela, I am okay. The time will come when we can talk about this. All I want you to know now is that you are all I have, and that I am confident that we will get through this. I cannot deny that this whole thing makes me very sad, but thinking of you guys and of the moment that we will meet again gives me the strength I need. Thank you for everything you are doing for me. I will be forever in your debt. I LOVE YOU. God is with us.”
The letter was written on a crumpled piece of paper by use of a graphite pencil. His handwriting was irregular, and in some places it was as if he were scribbling. Perhaps his hands were shaking due to fear, or anger, or exhaustion, or sadness. But it was clear from the syntax and, in general, from the meticulous style, that it was Paul —the young communications thesis student, the one who was already working as a journalist and cameraman in Valera, a city in the state of Trujillo, where he was born and raised—, who had penned it.
Paul’s family was relieved when they read the letter on August 5, 2024. They had not heard from him in five agonizing days. They had no idea about what was going on, and they were hurting miserably because they didn’t know what had happened to him.
He had never been involved in politics. As a student at the University of the Andes, he was best known for his skills as a broadcaster and a sports commentator (he was a huge fan of the Trujillanos Soccer Club), and for his having co-founded Voces Solidarias, an NGO that helped children with malnutrition, with friends from the university. He was also known for his involvement with alternative music groups in Valera.
On the morning of July 30, the same morning he was arrested, he had left home early to meet his girlfriend Daniela at a fast food joint in the city.
Over breakfast, they talked about what all Venezuelans were talking about: the elections of July 28; the results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE) that reelected Nicolás Maduro for a new term; the tally sheets that the opposition had collected and published on a website, which showed that the election results varied wildly from those on the official report. They talked about the situation in their state of Trujillo, which was clearly no longer a Chavista stronghold. As per the website in question, opposition candidate Edmundo González had secured 64 percent of the vote.
They talked about the country, about how filled with uncertainty they felt, about the future. Daniela, who is also a journalist, had told him in December of 2023 that she was considering leaving Venezuela. But Paul, despite having one of his brothers and many of his friends living abroad, was reluctant to the idea. He wouldn’t leave. Not him.
Will he now?
Valera, with a population of about 600,000 inhabitants, is a rather big, quiet town. That morning, it seemed more quiet than usual. Most of the shops were closed, and there was more trash flying everywhere than cars and pedestrians passing.
Nevertheless, things were about to change. The people, through word of mouth, had called for a protest at 11:00 a.m. at a spot near Avenida Bolívar. It was one of hundreds that erupted spontaneously across the country when the CNE announced the election results. From July 29 to July 30 alone, the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict had documented 915 protests.
That’s where Paul headed after breakfast to meet with journalist Mayra Linares, his coworker at VPItv. Despite the fact that his forte was sports news, the situation called for him to step in and help: he would work the cameras.
On his way, he noticed that some people were also en route to the meeting point. And that there were police squads along the road.
He and Mayra got a bit tense and wary, but they went ahead anyway, with their press passes, their cameras, and their microphones.
The protest had not yet begun when, at about 10:30 a.m., they were approached by approximately ten motorcyclists wearing uniforms of the Bolivarian National Police. The officers warned them that they were not allowed to record. Paul and Maura argued with them, saying that they were journalists doing their job. The officers couldn’t care less and tried to arrest them with no explanation. Mayra ran, calling those around them for help, but it all happened very quickly. Paul did not resist. The policemen snatched the backpack where he kept his equipment and his mobile phone, and forcibly put his arms behind his back.
They got him on a motorcycle and drove off.
A few minutes later, Mayra made a phone call to VPItv, reporting the situation. At the end of her message, she said:
“I don’t know where Paul is.”
Perhaps that was why Daniela got a call from a co-worker with the news. Daniela called Paul’s mom to let her know, rushed to the place where the arrest had taken place, and recorded a video that she posted on her socials at 11:22 a.m.
“This is the situation in Valera. We can see police officers in the background. We have been informed that VPItv’s cameraman has been detained (…).”
She tried hard not to cry.
And so the search began. His family called everywhere and went to police precincts and detention centers for information on his whereabouts. Not a word. At around 1:00 p.m., they heard that he was being held at the Valera 2.0 Police Coordination Center.
His family went there, looking for him.
Nothing. There were tenths of people like them trying to get information about the detainees. The mothers, fathers, and siblings of other prisoners were asking the same thing: “Where are they? Why did they take them? The unanswered questions echoed through the streets of Valera and of the entire country. From July 29 to August 17, the ONG Foro Penal had verified 1,416 detentions, 26 of which had been made in Trujillo, a state under Gerardo Alfredo Márquez, a military officer and member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
“We have never seen repression like this,” said attorney Gonzalo Himiob, director of Foro Penal, staggered by the number of people that had been detained in such a short time.
Paul grew up in a house on the outskirts of Escuque —a small, mountainous municipality in the state of Trujillo, in the Venezuelan Andes— with his two brothers, his father, his mother, and his paternal grandparents. His is a small family whose members are now scattered across the world. There was a time, though, when they got together for no reason. Paul was the one who most insisted on organizing the gatherings, the most “family-minded”, if you will. The news of his arrest shocked them all to their very core.
They looked for information, consulted with lawyers, called everyone they thought could be of help. But they could not even find out where he was. They didn’t know for sure if he was in the police coordination center they had been told; still, they brought him food, clothes, and toiletries, which they handed to the officers. After a while, they were given back the containers, now empty.
Outside, they watched Nicolás Maduro say on social media that they were getting two prisons ready to lock up the “terrorists of the guarimbas“, and that the sentences for the “traitors to the homeland” would be 15 to 30 years.
“Will they take Paul there? Oh, God!”
His mother, Daniela, and the rest of the family would go there every single day, trying to obtain information. His mom would make him wheat flour arepas with butter, his favorite food ever, trusting that he would get to eat them. She couldn’t help but think that maybe Paul wasn’t even there, or that he wasn’t receiving the stuff they brought him, and worried that, wherever he was, he could feel that they had given up on him.
She would stand for hours checking the walls, windows, corridors, and hallways of the center, hoping to catch a glimpse of her son. She thought about him and remembered him so badly that her mind tricked her into believing that she was actually hearing his voice, that she was actually seeing him… her 26-year-old son.
On Wednesday, July 31, one day after his detention, large canopy tents were set up outside the center. What for? Was it to put them there? Rumor had it that the detainees would be brought to a court with jurisdiction over terrorism in Caracas for a virtual preliminary hearing. However, nobody knew at what time it had been scheduled or if it had already been held.
It was like a rumor mill and the winds were playing with their mood.
At times, they felt hopeful. “I heard that they will be brought to court today and then they will release them.” “Apparently, they detained them to stop people from protesting, but now that the dust has settled, they are going to set them free.” “They’ll do it at night so that people don’t make too much of a fuss about it.”
Other times, they were devastated. “They will send them to the Tocorón prison” (almost 311 miles away). “They transferred them last night, when there wasn’t a soul watching.” “A friend told me that the center has never held people detained in connection with protests, and that the canopy tents are for something else”.
Meanwhile, their hearts were thrown into those winds of contradiction, not sure what to believe.
That’s how those five days went by, until the moment the family was handed the crumpled piece of paper with Paul’s handwriting. They were finally able to breathe again. He was there. He was alive and well and had received the food they had sent him.
On August 6, they saw him as he was taken to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (DIP) of the National Police in Carvajal, a 30-minute ride from Valera. They did not know it at the time, but a special court in Caracas had already charged him with terrorism at a remote hearing.
He was not allowed private defense counsel.
According to Foro Penal, Paul is the first of four press workers to have been detained after the presidential elections of July 28. But that figure has continued to rise: as of August 22, the National Union of Press Workers reported that 10 of their own had been detained. Almost all of them worked for regional media outlets, like Paul. From July 29 to August 4, 2024, the Press and Society Institute had registered 79 violations to the freedom of the press. “This documentation shows that systematic repression and control over public interest information in Venezuela have definitely intensified.”
Paul’s girlfriend, his mother, his relatives, and his friends have been allowed to visit him at the DPI. Every day, they bring him wheat-flour arepas, books, and clothes. A week into his detention, Daniela was handed a small note:
“Thank God this happened to me and not to you.”
Those words knocked her off her feet. It was the noblest “I love you” she had ever been told.
The visits are short, no more than 10 minutes. The rest of the time, they stand next to a railing overlooking the DIP and speak loudly so he can hear them. They have seen him peeking out the window’s bars, his two hands in the shape of a heart, letting them know that he loves them.
Paul has told them that he is hopeful he can prove at his trial —which will be held at a date yet to be determined— that he is not a terrorist. In the meantime, he wants them to bring him everything that is written about him and his case. Maybe to remind himself of who he is. Or to feel less lonely.
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Quiero contar historias porque en ellas aprendo a encontrar la mía. Escribo, eso hago. A veces crónicas, a veces poemas. Siempre escribo. Sobre todo, escribo mi vida.
Me he conmovido al extremo….un joven de mi tierra victima de la injusticia y mezquinda en un país que no es de ellos …un pais que es es de todo un pueblo participativo y protagonico que quiere LIBERTAD..#LiberenaPaul….