The communicator Berta Valle, wife of the former presidential candidate and current political prisoner Felix Maradiagaparticipated this Thursday, April 6, in the Geneva Summit for Democracy and Human Rights where he denounced the situation faced by prisoners of conscience and the serious crisis that Nicaragua is experiencing at the hands of Daniel Ortega’s regime.
“In 2019, my husband Félix Maradiaga stood here on this stage and said that he saw the seeds of hope that were being planted in Nicaragua. He today he is in prison. And I am here to continue his fight against the cruelest abuses of human rights that my country has ever seen, “Valle began his speech.
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The persecuted politician expressed that she had the opportunity «a front row seat to denounce the abuses of the regime. By 2016, Felix and I were well known throughout the country. Me for my reports, Félix for his work and defense of human rights».
“Our lives in Nicaragua were in danger”
Regarding the work of Félix Maradiaga that led him to be on the radar of the Ortega regime, Valle pointed out that the opponent “began to investigate corruption for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies and shortly after, Ortega announced reforms to the Insurance Social that would increase taxes and reduce benefits for Nicaraguans.
“Across the country, people took to the streets to protest. Police responded by violently attacking unarmed protesters. In April 2018 alone, they killed so many people », he denounced.
The Nicaraguan opponent stressed that “as prominent members of the opposition” they knew that their lives were in danger. “So Felix and I made the impossible decision to bring our 7-year-old daughter Alejandra to the US.”
“Félix stayed in Nicaragua to continue his academic work and political activism with the Civil Society Leadership Institute, but when he testified before the UN Security Council about Ortega’s abuses, the regime issued an arrest warrant in against him, accusing him of organized crime and financing of terrorism,” he said.
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He recalled that in 2018, a group of supporters of dictator Daniel Ortega beat Maradiaga “so severely” that he was hospitalized. I told him that he had to go, so he escaped to the United States to be with me and Alejandra temporarily ».
“There is nothing democratic in the Ortega regime”
After denouncing the arbitrary detention and abuse suffered by the political scientist along with some thirty new prisoners of conscience in the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) in Managua, Valle pointed out that Ortega won a rigged election after locking up all the presidential candidates. .
“In November, the regime announced that Ortega won the elections, but make no mistake, there is nothing democratic about his regime. He has banned all independent political parties, arrested journalists and shut down media organizations,” he recalled.
“Today, Nicaragua is the only country in Latin America without a printed newspaper. This is a one-party totalitarian state, where dissent is not allowed and criticism is silenced,” he stressed.
He emphasized that with the help of authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia, and Venezuela, Ortega and his family control Nicaragua’s economy “and have amassed an enormous fortune; meanwhile, our citizens live in poverty and more than 200,000 people have fled the country, desperately seeking work, housing and food elsewhere.”
“The lives of our relatives are in the hands of the regime”
In interview with Article 66Berta Valle said that the circumstances that they live as relatives of a political prisoner is very difficult, “we experience anguish every day, knowing that the lives of our relatives are in the hands of the regime,” she said.
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“I am very concerned about my husband, but I am also very concerned about the health and conditions of political prisoners, not only in El Chipote, but in the different prison systems in the country,” she said.
Regarding the commemoration of the four years of repression at the hands of Daniel Ortega, the journalist stated that “the civic struggle began and that it will not be able to stop because as Nicaraguans we have understood the value of freedom, that we we can live without freedom.
“I believe that the flame that was lit in April is still burning, perhaps we have not manifested it as before due to the level of repression and danger that we are experiencing, but obviously the desire of Nicaraguans is to have freedom and democracy,” he remarked.
Berta Valle concluded that with the level of abstentionism that there was in the last votes in Nicaragua “we can realize that the people have already made the decision and the decision is not to recognize an illegitimate government, especially due to the level of human rights violations what they have done.”
From the forced exile to which she has been forced, Valle said this morning at the end of her speech that “I know that our family will be reunited one day and I know that the Ortega regime will fall. The future of Nicaragua is democracy and that is why I will never stop fighting.
