Jorge Ramos and his reporting team of five were briefly detained by Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Ramos, 60, and five other Univision reporters were at the presidential palace to interview Maduro when they were forced into a dark room and had their equipment and belongings taken from this Feb. 25, 2019.

Maduro “became upset with the line of questioning and ordered the seizure of the video and Univision equipment, including TV and phones, as well as the detention of the journalists,” reported Univision.

Venezuela is under a national crisis as famine and illness ravishes the country. Maduro, whose first term came to an end Jan. 10, 2019, refused to step down and was inaugurated by Maikel Moreno, Chief Justice of the Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela. As a result of this coupe, the US and many other countries placed sanctions on Venezuela. All this while the country

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Affairs, Kimberly Brier, tweet “.@StateDept has received word the journalist @jorgeramosnews and his team are being held against their will at Miraflores Palace by Nicolas Maduro. We insist on their immediate release; the world is watching. #Venezuela.”

Ramos spoke to Univision upon his release and said that “[Maduro] didn’t like the things we were asking, about the lack of democracy in Venezuela, the torture of political prisoners, about the humanitarian crisis that they are living…[Maduro] got up and left after I showed him a video of young men eating out of a trash can. One of his ministers, Jorge Rodriguez, came and told us that the interview wasn’t authorized and they kept all our equipment…we don’t have any of the material- any of the interview…They locked us up in a dark room…kept a lot of our personal belongings ”

While Ramos and his team were released in 2.5 hours, they were allegedly under surveillance by agents of the Bolivian intelligence. Daniel Coronell, President of News for Univision in the United States tweeted “…We are making @NicolasMaduro responsible for the security of our journalists, who were arbitrarily detained in Caracas.”

Coronell also reported that the Bolivian intelligence services were holding Ramos and his team under custody to be deported for “making questions that @NicolasMaduro didn’t like.”
Republican Senator, Marco Rubio also chimed in about the situation taking to twitter to say “@NicolasMaduro has detained a United States citizen & journalist @univision anchor @jorgeramosnews & his news crew & seized their equipment because he didn’t like the questions he was being asked.”

With 54 journalists killed in 2018 alone, the journalism world and the world at large is watching Venezuela for the safe return of Ramos and his team.