The eight-year-old daughter of journalist Miguel Mendoza, a critic of the Nicaraguan government who has been under arrest since June 2021, publicly asked to see her father, in an audio shared on social networks this Sunday.
“Even though I haven’t seen you for a year, my heart and memories are intact, there isn’t a single day that I don’t feel the need to hug you and express how much I love you. I need to see you,” said the girl, in an audio released by the Be Human program, which promotes the release of more than 190 people considered “political prisoners” in Nicaragua.
Mendoza, a well-known local sports journalist who openly criticized the government of President Daniel Ortega, was captured on June 24, 2021 and, according to relatives, since then they have not allowed him to meet with his daughter, nor to receive photographs or letters from the minor.
“I am an 8-year-old girl who waits for her father every day, who wakes up hoping to hug him again, and who needs to be close to him,” the girl said.
Related news: Miguel Mendoza’s daughter begs to see her father: “I pray to God that you return home soon”
The journalist was captured in the midst of a wave of arrests against opposition leaders and government critics, in the context of last November’s elections, in which Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, were re-elected with seven of his rivals in prison and two in exile.
The restrictions on contact with their children for the so-called “political prisoners” are not exclusive to Mendoza.
The journalist Miguel Mora and the activist Tamara Dávila were able to see their children, a young man with motor disabilities and a six-year-old girl, respectively, after having started two hunger strikes.
“Daddy, I want you to know that I pray to God every day, to take care of you and to come home soon. I have recorded videos and made drawings in the hope that someone can show them to you,” continued Mendoza’s daughter.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018 with massive anti-government protests that, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), were suffocated with armed attacks that left 355 dead in the first year, of which Ortega has admitted 200.
