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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Venezuela Residents Document Unrest With Dramatic Videos and Images

Video of clashes between Venezuelan protesters and the police at barricades in San Cristóbal.

The student protests that began just a few weeks ago in Venezuela have swept the country, as my colleague William Neuman reports, evolving into the biggest demonstrations seen since the death of the longtime leader Hugo Chávez last year.

While the government-controlled news media has sought to minimize the protests and portray the opposition as “fascists,” people across the country have been telling their own story, capturing images and video of the tumult. They also used Twitter and other social media platforms to urge people to build barricades across Venezuela and then share photos of them.

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Just this month, nearly one million posts on Twitter have used the hashtag #24FGranBarricadaNacional to help organize the conversation about the unrest.

In this video, shot through a window and uploaded onto YouTube, armed members of the government can be seen assembling outside of a barricade amid gun shots fired. At one point, they encounter a female demonstrator.