Exactly two years ago, on a day like today, June 21, the journalist and sports writer Miguel Mendoza was arbitrarily detained by a strong police unit, while he was outside his home. One day after his arrest, police agents raided his house and according to his wife, “the only thing they could take was our cell phones and a (damaged) camera that we had as a souvenir for 7 years.”
The now exiled and denationalized former politician Miguel Mendoza, in his personal Twitter account, recalled the torture, inhumane treatment and solitary confinement to which he was subjected in the “dungeons” of the Sandinista regime and, likewise, thanked “God, my family , friends and all citizens who prayed for my release.
For the journalist, the real reason for their kidnapping “was to silence me because I became an uncomfortable voice (for the dictatorship), who through social networks denounced them, singled them out, gave opinions and reported the crimes they committed and continue to commit.” on the Nicaraguan population.
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“That June 21, 2021 was the first of the 597 days that the regime had me in the dungeons, violating my rights, subjecting myself to psychological torture, immobilizing me, ripping off my family, trying to break and humiliate me,” he stressed.
«With my kidnapping, the dictatorship also sought to silence, turn off, disconnect, neutralize opinion on social networks, a space that they never conquered, a minefield in their deranged interest in having a unique and false narrative that seeks to manipulate reality by controlling all the media,” he added.
Subjected to arbitrary process
Miguel Mendoza also recalled the arbitrary judicial process to which he was subjected by the Nicaraguan Justice. The communicator was charged for the alleged crime of provocation, proposition and conspiracy to undermine national integrity, to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua and Nicaraguan society, in accordance with Law 1055, Law of Sovereignty.
Judge Luden Quiroz García, of the Managua Ninth Criminal Trial District Court, was the “executioner” who found Mendoza guilty and sentenced him to nine years in prison.
After spending 19 months and 17 days in jail, the sportswriter, along with 221 political prisoners, was released on February 9 and exiled to the United States. Hours later, they were all deprived of their nationality and forced to live in foreign lands in stateless status.
The critic of the regime, now free, assures that he remains “committed to defending freedom of expression” and “overcoming the censorship” that the dictatorship has imposed on the Nicaraguan press.
«They changed my life, but I continue with my head held high. (…) for the heroes of April, for the mothers of April, for the political prisoners, for the tortured, for the exiled, I reaffirm my commitment as a citizen denouncing the crimes of the dictatorship and I continue in my little information trench firmly believing that soon Nicaragua will be free,” he added.
