The president of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Organization (UN), Federico Villegas, denounced that the Government of Nicaragua, last July, denied entry to the Nicaraguan Annex Alfred Cunningham, a member of a mechanism of experts on rights of indigenous peoples of the UN.
“Ms. Cunningham, a Nicaraguan national, was appointed by this Council as a member of the expert mechanism for Central and South America in April of this year. In July, she traveled from Nicaragua to Geneva on her first official mission, to participate in the fifteenth session of the expert mechanism. After the session, Mrs. Cunningham was prevented from embarking on the return trip to her country, Nicaragua, because the Nicaraguan Government stipulated that she would be denied entry into the country, ”said Villegas.
The human rights defender described the decision of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime as “unacceptable” and considered that the lack of explanations to deny Cunningham’s return “indicates an act of retaliation.”
“On July 15, I requested clarification on the situation on numerous occasions, as well as the cooperation of the Government of Nicaragua to rectify the matter. However, I never received a response or guarantees from the Government of Nicaragua that Mrs. Cunningham could return to Nicaragua and to this day Mrs. Alfred Cunningham has not been able to return to her country,” she denounced on September 28.
Exiles executed by the regime
Daniel Ortega’s regime, in the last quarter, also exiled six other Nicaraguans who, without any explanation, informed them through the airlines they were traveling on that they were not authorized to enter the country. Prior to Villegas’ complaint, it was learned that the Ortega regime denied entry to the vice-chancellor of the Central American University (UCA), Jorge Huetewho intended to return to the country last Saturday, September 24, after a work trip in Córdoba, Argentina.
On September 27, the priest William Blandon, parish priest of the Santa Lucía Church, in Boaco; who was returning to his homeland after a trip through Israel, on a flight with a stopover in Miami, United States, was also prevented from entering Nicaragua.
The measure of the regime against Father Blandón was reported through the Facebook page of the Santa Lucía parish, belonging to the diocese of Granada. In which, in addition, they ask the Catholic congregation to continue praying for the Church.
On September 16, the lawyer Francisco Omar Gutiérrez, 62, appointed as defense attorney for Monsignor José Leonardo Urbina, sentenced by the Ortega justice system to 49 years in prison for the alleged crime of rape of a minor, also denounced that the regime Ortega-Murillo denied him, without any justification, the entry to his country.
The lawyer left Nicaragua on September 9 for Miami, United States, through the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua. When he left the country he had no major problem, he enjoyed his family visit trip, but, two days before returning, on September 13, he received an email from the Avianca airline, in which they notified him of the “immigration rejection” ordered by the Ortega Murillo regime.
In Julythe Ortega-Murillo regime also blocked the director of the canceled La Corriente Regional Feminist Program, the sociologist María Teresa Blandón, and the vicar of the Santo Cristo de Las Colinas parish in Managua, the priest Juan de Dios, from entering their homeland. García, who were returning to Nicaragua, each on their own.
Blandón left the country on June 24 through the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, where Immigration agents conducted a “long interrogation,” but he had no major difficulty traveling. It was not until his return, on July 1, that she was notified by the Avianca airline that she could not return to her country.
Father García, for his part, left Nicaragua on a date not yet specified and his return to the country was scheduled for September 13, but the Immigration authorities notified him twice by email that he is prohibited from returning to his homeland. .
The Jesuit priest José Alberto Idiáquez Guevara, former rector of the UCA, was also prevented from returning to the country last July, when he tried to return from Mexico, where he had been since 2021 for medical check-ups, according to sources close to that house of studies. Currently, Father Rolando Enrique Alvarado López is the new rector of the UCA.
