Venezuela’s chief prosecutor asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for protection on Friday, days after the Supreme Court barred her from leaving the country and ordered her bank accounts frozen.

Tensions between Luisa Ortega Diaz and President Nicolas Maduro’s administration have been steadily escalating since she contested a Supreme Court decision in late March that dissolved the Opposition-controlled National Assembly and sparked a deadly wave of unrest.

Since then, she has become one of the few critical voices within the government other than the sidelined congress challenging Mr. Maduro’s push to rewrite the Constitution and pressing charges against officers responsible for deaths during anti-government protests.

Systemic violations

On Friday, Ms. Ortega Diaz’s office announced it was summoning the chief of Venezuela’s feared Sebin intelligence agency, Gustavo Gonzalez, to appear on suspicion of “committing grave and systemic violations of human rights”.

Prosecutors said they are investigating incidents of illegitimate detentions, arbitrary raids and cases in which people have remained imprisoned despite court orders that they be freed. Mr. Maduro responded hours later by promoting Mr. Gonzalez to head the nation’s army. He called Mr. Gonzalez and another high-ranking official under probe “brave patriots”. The developments capped perhaps the most turbulent week yet in Ms. Ortega Diaz’s struggle to assert her office’s authority in a country where nearly every branch of the federal government is filled with Maduro allies.