Arya News - Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has made her first public appearance in over a year early Thursday, just hours after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has made her first public appearance in over a year early Thursday, just hours after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado was greeted by cheering supporters in the streets of Oslo.
A video of the scene was posted to her X account, showing a smiling Machado from the balcony of the Grand Hotel waving to a group of hundreds outside.
Pictures of her greeting and embracing supporters on the street were also published on her X account .
"The hug that all of Venezuela needs," she wrote in a caption accompanying the photos.
Machado, 58, made the appearance at around 2:30 a.m. local time, The New York Times reported.
Her appearance in the Scandinavian country follows more than a year of her hiding from the regime of Venezuela"s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro.
Machado led an opposition movement that many Venezuelans and international observers believe outpolled Maduro in last year"s elections. She won the opposition primary but was barred from appearing on the general election ballot by the Maduro regime, a move widely condemned.
She then backed presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez in the race who is believed by the opposition and many observers to have won the election. Maduro, however, responded by intensifying repression and human rights abuses against political opponents and public dissent, while his government-controlled National Electoral Council declared him the winner.
Her appearance came as she traveled to Oslo to participate in the Nobel Prize Ceremony as she was this year"s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a phone call released by the organization, Machado said she was on her way to Oslo, stating she was grateful for all those who risked their lives to make it happen.
"This is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people," she said, before boarding a plane.
She was unable to reach Oslo in time to receive the award, with her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, taking the diploma and medal on her mother"s behalf at Oslo"s City Hall.
And she read her mother"s acceptance speech.
"My dear Venezuelans, the world has marveled at what we have achieved. And soon, it will witness one of the most moving sights of our time: our loved ones coming home -- and I will stand again on the Simon Bolivar bridge, where I once cried among the thousands who were leaving, and welcome them back into the luminous life that awaits us," Sosa said on her mother"s behalf.
"Because in the end, our journey towards freedom has always lived inside us. We are returning to ourselves. We are returning home."