MIAMI – A short-lived promo posted to Twitter by Venezuelan tourism officials to highlight the nation’s openness to foreigners featured a Miami Herald reporter who had been detained while covering the country’s elections.
Earlier this week, a promo ran on the Twitter feed of the state-run Telesur television with a tag-line that read, translated from Spanish, “We love Venezuela for receiving foreigners like one of our own.”
The Herald (http://goo.gl/Tj1j7M ) reports that the promo included a November 2013 photo of Jim Wyss hugging a colleague, Luisa Yanez, at the Miami International Airport. Wyss had just returned from Venezuela, where he says officials had taken him into custody and held him for about 48 hours.
The promo is no longer posted on Telesur’s Twitter feed.
Venezuela’s tourism ministry declined to comment.