The Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) denounced the increase in the context of territorial control, harassment, climate of fear and criminalization in the framework of the municipal elections in Nicaragua on November 6. The organization documented the arrest of eight women activists and territorial leaders.
“During the week prior to election day, from October 29 to November 6, we documented eight arrests of women activists and territorial leaders, as well as family members who were arbitrarily detained when the police were looking for another member of the family. Of the eight women detained, two have already been released,” reported IM-Defenders on its website.
In that same period, the organization documented 12 cases of harassment against four women human rights defenders or territorial activists. These actions were perpetrated by the Ortega Police, by unidentified civilians, people who work for the State and sympathizers of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
“In the last six months we have documented 585 attacks against women human rights defenders in Nicaragua, mainly: harassment, surveillance, threats, de facto exile, closure of organizations, among others that seek to dismantle the social fabric, the protection of the territory and the organization popular,” he stressed.
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IM-Defenders called on the international community to “be alert and remain vigilant” in the post-election context that was classified as a “farce.” “We invite you to add your voices and denounce any new aggression against human rights defenders and their communities,” she urges.
The organization considers that the municipal votes, in which Ortega took complete control of the country’s 153 mayoralties, took place in a context of territorial repression and systematic attacks on the fundamental rights of the population.
“Like the presidential elections of November 2021, it constitutes an electoral farce, absolutely lacking in legitimacy and in breach of international transparency standards, whose objective is to consolidate the totalitarian government implemented since April 2018 by Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Liberation Front. National (FSLN),” the agency said.
The arrests in the electoral context totaled 31 people, according to the citizen observatory Urnas Abiertas and the Blue and White Monitoring of human rights violations in Nicaragua.
