Relatives of four opponents who are on a hunger strike in the El Chipote police prison in Nicaragua, including the legendary former Sandinista guerrilla commander Dora María Téllez, said on Monday that they fear for their lives and demanded their freedom.
“We fear that they may die in that torture center. With each passing day, their lives are in greater danger,” the relatives of Téllez, journalist Miguel Mendoza, sociologist Irving Larios and lawyer Róger Reyes said in a statement. They participated in a virtual press conference together with relatives of other opponents detained in that same police center.
According to their families, the four prisoners of conscience started in september a hunger strike to press for “an end to the inhumane conditions” in which they live, with poor nutrition, without medical attention or frequent visits. In the case of Mendoza and Reyes, they demand to see their minor daughters, which they have been denied since their arrest more than a year ago, they say.
They said that the concern is due to the fact that the government of Daniel Ortega suspended family visits in El Chipote 52 days ago, when the last one took place, lasting two hours. They indicated that today they do not know how they are.
Associated Press He requested a comment from Vice President Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife and official spokesperson, but the request was not immediately answered.
Téllez, who in 1978 stormed Congress in a Sandinista armed operation against dictator Anastasio Somoza, served 66 years in prison, where he is serving his sentence for being the founder of the opposition party UNAMOS (formerly the Sandinista Renovation Movement, MRS). According to her relatives, the hunger strike would further affect her precarious health.
In the statement, the relatives said that being held incommunicado with their families is “part of the psychological torture of the regime,” and that when they insist on requesting visits, they threaten them with not giving the inmates the bottles of water that they must bring to them every day. The chipotle.
“My husband has been on a hunger strike for 27 days and I am extremely worried, I don’t know how he is,” said Fernanda Guevara, wife of Róger Reyes, who was a lawyer for former presidential candidate Félix Maradiaga, also held in Chipote since his arrest. in June 2021.
Journalist Berta Valle, wife of Maradiaga and exiled in the United States, also demanded that her husband be allowed to receive a phone call or a drawing from their 9-year-old daughter, or at least a Bible to read.
“They have been arbitrarily tried and sentenced in secret trials, they do not have access to reading or writing materials, they are not allowed to talk to each other, and many do not even have the right to a blanket,” Valle denounced.
In their statement, the relatives requested for the inmates “specialized medical care, adequate food and the guarantee of respect for their human rights.” They also demanded an end to the solitary confinement in which most of them remain.
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