CARACAS — Security forces violently repressed protests that broke out in Venezuela’s capital Friday after the Supreme Court gutted the opposition-controlled Congress of its last vestiges of power.

The move drew widespread condemnation from foreign countries. Governments across Latin America assailed the power grab, which the head of the Organization of American States likened to a ‘‘self-inflicted coup’’ by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

The Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that as long as lawmakers remained in contempt of its rulings that nullified all legislation passed by the chamber, the high court, or an institution it designates, can assume the constitutionally assigned powers of the National Assembly. The Assembly has been controlled by the opposition for nearly a year and a half.

Maduro has yet to comment on the move. But chief prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz, normally a government loyalist, said it was her “historical duty’’ as a citizen and the nation’s top judicial authority to denounce what she called the Supreme Court’s ‘‘rupture’’ of the constitutional order.

The ruling and another earlier in the week limiting lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution capped a feud that began when the opposition won control of the legislature by a landslide in December 2015 and then mounted a campaign to force Maduro from office.

Associated Press