Venezuela's ex-Miss Universe Stefanía Fernández is bruised and bloody in Your Voice is Your Power human rights protest campaign
Journalists, student activists and TV presenters also posed in the striking photos
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Your support makes all the difference.As deadly unrest continues to blight Venezuela, high profile figures have sought to raise aware by posing in a series of unsettling photographs– their normally perfect, TV-ready faces smudged with dirt and sweat as they stare arrestingly into the camera lens.
Former Miss Universe Stefanía Fernández, who trades on perfection, is the lone female campaigner and arguably the most shocking. To raise awareness of human rights violations in the South American country and the gagging of media outlets, she wears a taut rope in her mouth, and has swapped the eyeliner that usually defines her doe eyes for blood dripping from her tear ducts.
Singer and TV host Francis Coleon, journalist Boris Izaguirre, as well as student political campaigners and athletes also lend themselves to the Your Voice is Your Power campaign.
Daniel Bracci, the photographer behind the campaign, has sought to harness the power of social media, and has accompanied his images with the hashtag #MordazasEnVenezuela (#GaggedInVenezuela) and uploaded them to Instagram.
“This campaign started because something directly affected me, when my grandfather passed away because of the hampa (the underworld-like situation) taking place in Venezuela,” Bracci told Informe 21, a Venezeulan news outlet.
The project comes as President Nicola Maduro agreed on Thursday to enter talks with Venezuela’s opposition with the help of independent facilitators, according to South American foreign ministers.
His year-old government has been widely criticized for its tough crackdown on opponents protesting galloping inflation, rampant crime and shortages of basic goods like toilet paper and corn flour.
Weeks of clashes between protesters and loyalists have left at least 32 people dead on both sides.
In their statement, the foreign ministers call on all parties to renounce violence.
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