Venezuela's violinist protestor injured again

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July 23, 2017 12:06 PM

Violinist Wuilly Arteaga, who gained fame for playing at many of Venezuela's opposition marches, was injured during a protest Saturday and taken to a clinic.

Opposition activist Wuilly Arteaga has become a symbol of Venezuela's protest movement

Violinist

The 23-year-old was seen with blood gushing from cuts on the left side of his face. He said later he had been hit by buckshot.

Far from his first run-in with authorities, as he protests against President Nicolas Maduro's government, Arteaga has become something of a demonstration icon.

"They are not going to frighten me," he said in a video he posted on Twitter. He is seen in a hospital bed with bandages on his face and swollen lips. "We are going to keep fighting."

Earlier this week, a new photograph appeared of him crying and holding a broken violin after military policeman snatched it by the strings.

Messages of support flooded social media and within hours he appeared in an online video playing a new violin donated by a well-wisher.

In another iconic incident, through clouds of tear gas, Arteaga wove calmly with his violin on his shoulder, playing the classic Venezuelan folk song "Alma Llanera."

Immortalized in photographs from that performance during a demonstration on May 8, he said he meant it as a "message of peace."

Three days earlier, he had played at the funeral of a fellow musician killed during the protests, who like Arteaga had trained in an orchestra for poor children.

"I felt very afraid. I didn't think music had so much power to make people think," he told AFP at the time. "But after the cemetery, I went along to the demonstration with more courage."

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