page_title: Timeline of the 2017 Venezuelan protests
section_title: May
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the 2017 Venezuelan protests / May
caption_attribution_description: English: March of Millions March in Caracas, 2017
context_page_description: The 2017 Venezuelan protests began in late January following the abandonment of Vatican-backed dialogue between the Bolivarian government and the opposition. The series of protests originally began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created by the Venezuelan government though the size of protests had decreased since 2014. Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, protests began to increase greatly throughout Venezuela.
  The opposition protests demanded immediate presidential elections to be held following controversy surrounding the failure to recall President Nicolás Maduro. The protests are listed below according to the month they had happened.
context_section_description: 1 May – Hundreds of thousands protested, attempting to march to various government buildings to have their demands met. Police responded to the peaceful marches violently firing tear gas, with one National Assembly member, Jose Olivares, being struck in the head with a tear gas canister which led to heavy bleeding. President Maduro announces plans to replace the National Assembly with a communal national constitutional assembly and calls for the drafting of a new constitution, the 3rd in modern times.
  3 May - Hundreds of thousands of people marched nationwide; two protesters were killed, and a police officer who was shot died the following day. Reports circulate that Leopoldo López, the leader of the 2014 protests who was sentenced the 13 years in prison in 2015, was "transferred to a military hospital with health complications". During a protest in Altamira, a National Guard truck ran over a group of protesters, resulting in at least three wounded.
  4 May - Protesters, primarily students, marched in and around Caracas, with tear gas being used near the Central University of Venezuela. The president of the federation of student centers of the José Antonio Anzoátegui university was killed during a student assembly in the city of El Tigre. Another student wounded during the incident died days later. Many supporters of Leopoldo López, gathered outside of Ramo Verde Prison and protested throughout the region following reports that his health was seriously impaired and the Bolivarian government's denial of visitors to López, though they released a "proof of life" video, which some described as fabricated. Human Rights Watch further demanded President Maduro to authorize a visit to López since he had been denied visits from his family and his lawyer since early-April. Lilian Tintori, López's wife, later called for a march of women on Saturday, 6 May, stating to the Minister of Defense, "Vladimir Padrino Lopez, are you going to shoot the women this Saturday?"
  5 May - Opposition officials drape a large banner down the side of the National Assembly's administrative building high above central Caracas reading "Dictator Maduro". Citizens of La Villa del Rosario burn and tear down a statue of late President Hugo Chávez, an image compared to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's statue in Iraq as well as other instances of statue toppling during times of popular unrest.
  6 May - Tens of thousands of Venezuelan women march throughout Venezuela against the government of President Maduro. In Caracas, nuns, women dressed in white and topless women marched on the Francisco Fajardo Freeway together until they were barricaded by the National Guard near central Caracas. In Táchira, women marched carrying rosaries and prayed for protest victims.
  8 May - President Maduro announces a plan of "a military constituency to deepen the Bolivarian military revolution within the very heart of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces", calling for the military to help draft a new constitution with the goal to "strengthen the union" between the military and civilians. In Maracaibo, a foundation housing children and elderly individuals was caught between a clash of authorities and protesters, resulting in the evacuation of hundreds due to the heavy use of tear gas. Demonstrators begin using "Puputovs", a play on words of Molotov cocktail, with glass devices filled with excrement and thrown at authorities after PSUV official  Jacqueline Faría mocked protesters who had to crawl through sewage in the Guaire River. The hashtag #puputov began to trend on Twitter in Venezuela while there were also reports of authorities beginning to vomit after being drenched in excrement by protesters.
  9 May - In Caracas and Táchira, the Democratic Unity Roundtable called for open cabildos to discuss the proposed assembly constituency. 25-year-old Oriana Wadskier, a student of the University of Carabobo, was run over by an IVSS truck (Instituto Venezolano de los Seguros Sociales) during a protest of agricultural workers in Calabozo, Guárico State. She was taken to a hospital by helico
caption: Venezuelans marching on 20 May during the We Are Millions march in the Francisco Fajardo Freeway.
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