Venezuelan President Orders Weho Filmmaker Jailed for 'Creating Violence'

Timothy Hallett Tracy, a West Hollywood filmmaker who went to Venezuela last year to shoot a documentary, has been arrested by government authorities on accusations of fomenting post-election violence on behalf of the U.S. government.

"President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday that he personally ordered Tracy's arrest on suspicion of 'creating violence in the cities of this country,'" the Associated Press reported. "Venezuela's interior minister said Tracy was working for U.S. intelligence, paying right-wing youth groups to hold violent demonstrations in order to destabilize the country after Maduro's narrow election win last week."

A government official said Tracy, originally from an affluent Detroit suburb, was taken into custody Wednesday evening at the Caracas airport, as he was attempting to leave the country.

Venezuela has been in turmoil ever since Maduro, a follower of the late socialist President Hugo Chavez, won election amid allegations of voter fraud.

Friends and family of Tracy, 35, told the AP and The Washington Post that he went to the South American country last year at the urging of Venezuelan friends from his days at Georgetown University and a Venezuelan girlfriend, and that he had no political agenda or ties to the U.S. government.

Venezuelan authorities alleged that Tracy had been providing support to young protesters who oppose Maduro.

"They don't have CIA in custody. They don't have a journalist in custody. They have a kid with a camera," director Aengus James, a friend of Tracy's, told the AP. "This whole thing came about with him at a party in South Florida. He met this cute girl who says, `If you really are a documentary filmmaker, you'll come tell the story of what is happening in Venezuela.' And if you say something like that to Tim, he goes, whether or not he knows a single person there or knows anything about the political situation or the consequences."

On Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff, who represents West Hollywood and is chairman of the Freedom of the Press Caucus, issued a statement in which he called the charge againt Tracy "ludicrous on its face."

“Venezuela’s arrest of Tim Tracy ... is an unsettling indication that Hugo Chavez's intolerance of press freedom has survived his death," Schiff said. ... “The Venezuelan government should release Mr. Tracy immediately and allow him to leave the country without further hindrance.”

Friends of Tracy have set up a Web page to rally support for his release.

Read more at The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.