The journalist Miguel Mora Barberena, former candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua and owner of Canal 100% Noticias, has been on a hunger strike for more than 30 days in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote, demanding that they allow him to see his son Miguelito Mora Chávez, 21, confirmed his relatives after attending the ninth period of visits authorized by the Ortega-Murillo regime between July 22 and 24.
Verónica Chávez, Mora’s wife, affirms that her partner made this extreme decision, even at the risk of his own life, out of desperation at not having seen his son in more than a year and in the absence of a response from the authorities. El Chipote, who have been repeatedly asked to authorize entry.
“There have been many times that we have requested, through letters, that they please let the child in, it is his right, because even though Miguelito is our child, right, because he is a special child, he has a motor disability. and we keep him in a wheelchair, legally he is 21 years old, he is of legal age, so there is no argument of that kind,” Chávez said in an interview with the program Tonight.
She assured that her son asks about his father every day and the forced distance has had “emotional repercussions on his health”, because, she stressed, her husband -before being unjustly imprisoned- remained devoted to his son, assisting him in his daily activities and shared the responsibility of accompanying him to his therapies.
Mora continues to lose weight
Chávez affirmed that, as a result of these first 30 days of hunger strike, Mora “has lost more weight” and as a family they are “extremely concerned about the repercussions” that this may have on his health.
In more than a year of confinement, Mora has lost 30 pounds of weight, due to prison conditions and the precarious food he receives in El Chipote, and it is estimated that after a month of hunger strike he lost another seven pounds, according to information provided by his family to Canal 100% Noticias.
The journalist’s wife reminded the State of Nicaragua that it is “their responsibility to protect the life, the physical integrity of those they keep under their protection.”
In addition, he asked the “corresponding authorities to put their hands on their hearts and allow that right to meet my husband and also Miguelito.”
Mora was detained for a second time on June 20, 2021, three months after making public his candidacy for the presidency for the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD), which the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), in May of 2021, stripped of its legal status, in order to eliminate the electoral booth of the National Coalition.
The journalist was found guilty of the alleged crime of “undermining national integrity” and sentenced last February to 13 years in prison and disqualification from holding public office.
Mora Barberena’s family has demanded immediate and unconditional release, stating that the journalist is innocent. During the trial against him, last February, the journalist himself reiterated his innocence and pointed out that those who judged them committed “prevarication.”
Mora was arrested for the first time in December 2018, along with the journalist Lucía Pineda Ubau, press officer of Canal 100% Noticias. Both were imprisoned for six months, suffering ill-treatment and torture, until they were released in June 2019.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo keeps more than 180 people imprisoned for political reasons in the different prisons of the country, among them: journalists, human rights defenders, presidential candidates, political and social activists, former diplomats, opponents, students and entrepreneurs.
