Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been released after being arrested.

Venezuela’s popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was released Thursday afternoon after being briefly detained by her enemies during an anti-government protest in Caracas on Thursday. According to the statement in X by a political aide.

Ms Machado ‘violently arrested as she left the meeting’ X said. “Regime soldiers opened fire on the motorcycles carrying him.”

The country’s autocrat Nicolas Maduro is set to be sworn in for a third term as president on Friday.

Mrs. Machado had been lives in hiding It was his first public appearance since August amid threats of arrest by government officials in Venezuela. He called for rallies across the country and in cities around the world to protest Mr. Maduro’s inauguration.

Thousands of people turned out to support Ms Machado at an event in Caracas on Thursday, all risking government arrest. There, the leader of the opposition is standing on top of a truck, and supporters are chanting “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”

Magalli Meda, a political aide at X, said Ms. Machado was knocked down on her motorcycle as she was leaving the meeting.

“Firearms were fired at the event,” Ms Meda said. “They took him by force”

During his brief detention, “he was forced to make several videos and then he was released,” he said. “In the next few hours, he will be the one calling on the country to explain what happened.”

Ms. Machado’s representatives declined to say who detained her. The event was packed with government security forces backed by members of armed gangs known as collectivos.

Minister of the Interior of Venezuela Diosdado Cabello speaking in a television interviewcalled the seizure a “lie” and accused the opposition of making it up to attract attention.

The country’s opposition, as well as the United States and other countries, say that Mr. Maduro stole the recent elections and that the real winner is Edmundo Gonzalez, a former diplomat who has the support of Ms. Machado.

Mr. Gonzalez has been living in exile since September.

Before her arrest, Ms. Machado told her followers, “This force that we’ve built and that grows every day has prepared us for this final step.”

“Whatever they do tomorrow,” he said of Maduro’s inauguration, “they just buried themselves!”

About 2,000 people have been killed in Venezuela since the July 28 election, including in recent days Mr. Gonzalez’s son-in-law, Rafael Tudaresas well as Carlos Correa, director of a high-profile non-profit organization called Espacio Público.