CARACAS: Eva Belloso's boss fired her from her government job with a single, chilling line: "You know what you did."
Indeed, she thinks she does. She signed a petition calling for a recall referendum against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
She is one of 1,250 government employees sacked for signing the petition, according to the trade union UNETE, which plans to file a discrimination case at the International Labor Organization demanding their jobs back.
"I had spent my entire professional life at SENIAT," the Venezuelan tax authority, said Belloso, a 51-year-old lawyer.
"We don't deserve to be thrown out for exercising our rights after 20, 25, 30 years."
Maduro is fighting for his political survival as Venezuela teeters on the brink of economic collapse, devastated by the global plunge in the price of oil, its main export.
Tapping Venezuelans' outrage over food shortages, long lines, hyperinflation and violent crime, the opposition has gathered 1.8 million signatures to launch a referendum on removing Maduro, as provided for in the constitution.
The leftist president's camp has vowed to fight them tooth and nail.
Maduro's right-hand man, former legislative speaker Diosdado Cabello, called on government supporters in May to comb through the petition "signature by signature" for state employees.
"If there are squalid infiltrators, they have to go," he said.
Belloso said that left her no doubt about the real reason she was fired after 24 years.
"All the pieces fit," she said.
Miguel Monsalve tells a similar story after being sacked from his job at the National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec), where he had worked for 12 years.
"They didn't tell us why. But when the fired workers started to talk among ourselves we all had a common denominator: we had signed" the recall petition, he said.
He said similar firings had also taken place at the state iron and aluminum producers. Human rights group Provea says police officers have been sacked for the same reason.
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