The new modus operandi of the dictatorship in Nicaragua, which traps the relatives of critical citizens when it cannot capture them, is “cruelty” and “a new level of barbarism,” say Dulce María Porras and Javier Álvarez, two Nicaraguans who, from exile, reiterated the demand for the release of their relatives who are in the regime’s prisons as hostages.
On September 13 last, the Police arbitrarily detained Álvarez’s wife, daughter and son-in-law, named Jeannine Horvilleur, Ana Carolina Álvarez and Félix Roiz. Both Jeannine and Ana Carolina are French Nicaraguans. Two days later, on the 15th, also Freddy Porras was arrested, brother of Dulce Porras. None of the now prisoners had political influence or participation. Their “crime” was being relatives of Álvarez and Porras.
“The repression is leading this country to a situation of terror”, Álvarez said, adding that, when the dictatorship came looking for him and could not find him, they decided to punish him, take revenge, “hit the most sensitive and essential part of a human being, which is his intimate family circle”, which he classifies as “an aberration of law… of human rights… of logic. If they don’t catch you, they’re going to make you pay in such a harsh way, like touching your soul, practically.”
He also said that, although the French diplomacy has requested information on the legal case and that they allow him to verify in situ the state of his wife and daughter, “no one has been able to see them. No one has been able to talk to them. No physical contact has been allowed. The only thing that is known is the dirty clothes they return, the requests they make for their medicines, (his wife is a cancer survivor) and his personal effects,” he assured.
Porras also considers that capturing relatives is a revenge of the regime against opponents. Taking his brother away “is a new pattern of the dictatorship.” Porras describes his brother Freddy as “a man dedicated to his work, to his family life, his home, his wife, his children.” Although he has no political involvement, “he is a relative of an opponent and as such, he has to go to jail,” he lamented.
Tuesday’s trials are “rigged”
After little more than a month of confinement, for this Tuesday, October 18, the Judiciary subordinated to the orders of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo scheduled the trials against the relatives of both opponents, whom he accuses of alleged conspiracies and alleged spread of false news, without even allowing them to interact with a lawyer who complies with the obligation to provide them with an appropriate legal defense.
Álvarez said that his relatives “first, were under investigation. Now already are in a state of indictment and on the 18th they go to trial”, hoping to be declared innocent, “because they have not committed any crime”, although “we already know what the role of the judicial system is in this country”, he pointed out.
He is certain that the prosecutor will accuse Jeannine “of being the wife of Javier Álvarez”; to Ana Carolina, “for being the daughter of Javier Álvarez”, and to Félix, for having married “the daughter of Javier Álvarez. Those are the accusations that are going to be made against them, because they have no involvement in any political activism. They are, plain and simple, my relatives,” he recalled.
“I never thought that they would be accused of two crimes that are totally invented… totally unfounded. They have no handle. They have no element of reality. They don’t exist,” he said, questioning how they can be accused of “conspiring to undermine” or “spreading false news through the networks… if they barely use their networks, and the ones they use are basically for work,” he defended. .
Porras also wants to see his brother Freddy released, but “they don’t do that. They condemn. They are capable of condemningto innocent citizens) and do worse things. Therefore, “I do not expect much (of the trial)because what they do is take them and convict them”, and added that no defense attorney has a voice or a vote.
She hopes that, having not committed crimes, “our relatives will be released. It is cruel to keep innocent people in jail, like our political prisoners”, and hold a trial for them, accuse them of something that is absolutely false, that is invented. “Yours is a rigged trial, liar. What can they accuse him of, if he is innocent? ”, She reiterated.
A nightmare
If the capture of Álvarez’s relatives was a totally unexpected event, that of Porras was an event that could, at least, be suspected.
Dulce, Freddy’s sister, recounted that, before being arrested on September 15, he had sent her photos of individuals on motorcycles who stopped at the corner of his house, chased and harassed him, more or less from on July 18 this year.
A month after his capture and confinement in El Chipote “nobody has been able to see him.” The only certainty they have that he is there is because they returned the dirty clothes he was wearing the day he was kidnapped. After that, there is no information about him. They don’t know how he is. The family has asked, but they are answered in a bad way, and “they don’t tell them, they don’t show it, they don’t teach it”, he lamented.
The pain of Mrs. Porras is greater, remembering that this is the third brother to be attacked, after the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza murdered Silvio, her and Freddy’s brother, without being able to recover the body. Then, in the 2018 protests, her brother Wilfredo was shot, and now Freddy is being arrested.
For Álvarez, it was a complete surprise to learn that they were looking for him and, even more so, that they had acted against their family nucleus. Just as he never perceived that there was a persecution against him, “because my work has always been very peaceful, humanitarian”, he assures that he did not detect any type of action or harassment against his own.
The worst thing he imagined was that they were going to get him out of his home and that, not finding him, they were going to search and search the house, to question his family, and that, at most, they were going to take them to a police station. Police, where they would spend hours questioning them, threatening them, telling them barbarities, and then returning them home.
But it was not like that. They were taken away, something he never thought would happen. “This is a nightmare. As I said before: they have left me without a family. They have left me without a family.”
