Venezuela detains 243 in raids on protest camps

Venezuelan authorities have demolished four protest camps in Caracas and detained more than 200 people in pre-dawn raids, striking at the remaining bastions of a months-long and at times deadly anti-government movement.
But hours later, groups of youths were back out on the streets of the capital, where they were met by tear gas and rubber bullets yesterday.
Riot police had earlier swept through the camps in the surprise raids, with Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres saying the sites occupied by students were "being used by more violent groups to commit terrorist acts."
He said the 243 people detained would be questioned to determine whether they should be prosecuted.

Lawyer and human rights activist Elenis Rodriguez said "very few young people were able to escape the onslaught."
At least 41 people have died and more than 700 have been injured since students and other opponents of the socialist government took to the country's streets in February to protest rampant crime, runaway inflation and shortages of basic goods.

Over the past month, the protest movement has largely been concentrated in Occupy-style encampments in Caracas, with the main one set up opposite the office of the United Nations Development Program in a tony neighbourhood.
That site - which consisted of hundreds of tents and blocked three of six lanes of a major thoroughfare - was ravaged by the raid.

Rodriguez Torres said police seized drugs, weapons, explosives, mortars, grenades and gas canisters during their operation security forces on a daily basis."
But student leader Juan Requesens vowed the demonstrators would not be deterred.
"The students will pursue their fight for rights," he said.
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas expressed solidarity with the protesters but urged them to use the ballot box for change.
"I would tell Venezuelans who are fighting for their freedoms... That the magical moment will come once a vote occurs," "The Mask of Zorro" star told reporters in Lima.
The police action came just hours before a hearing for jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was postponed.

Lopez "has again been transferred to the Ramo Verde military prison," said a statement from his Popular Will party.
The announcement did not specify a new court date.
"What are they afraid of? Of the truth? They know I should be freed," the party, via Twitter, quoted Lopez as saying.