The Nicaraguan Parliament controlled by President Daniel Ortega will toughen the laws approved in 2020, especially the Sovereignty Law under which the main opponents have been arrested and to date remain in prison on various charges.
After a process of supposed consultation carried out in Parliament for two months, the legislators who met with officials from the other powers of the State, suggested adding reforms, within these a so-called “Extinction of domain” that consists of confiscating the assets to who violate the Law 1055, Sovereignty Law.
They also suggest increasing the sentence from 15 to 20 years in prison for anyone who resorts to said crime.
According to the official document, the alleged victims of the 2018 protests, asked that the penalties should be more severe “and demanded justice for the religious and directors of human rights organizations that were involved in the coup adventure.”
“What was done was a consultation process attended by representatives of government institutions such as the Police, the Public Ministry, the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Comptroller of the Republic, the Judiciary. Supposed victims also attended, that’s what I call them because those who arrived are nothing more than related to the government,” said the deputy and vice president of the Justice Commission, Álvaro Rivera, by telephone to the Voice of America.
According to Rivera, who was in the consultation process, the next step is the creation of an inter-institutional commission that will analyze the suggested reforms and then they will go back to the justice commission to finally be approved in the Assembly with the official majority.
“Once they prepare the reform proposal, it will reach the commission because there the deputies will make the opinion that will then be taken to the plenary for discussion and approval,” said Rivera.
They foresee a new wave of repression
The lawyer and former official of the Judiciary Yader Morazán comments to the VOA that most of the laws approved in recent years have followed the same pattern and are adapted to the “repressive needs of the context”, therefore it does not rule out that they be applied to opponents who are arrested again.
“First, they carry out the whims of Carmen (President Ortega’s residence) in a practical way, and then they create the mechanisms or legal “justification,”” Morazán says.
The former official assures that this was the case with the package of laws that emerged from the fourth quarter of 2020.
“First, NGOs in the country were persecuted and to legally justify such action, the Foreign Agents Law was created. The same thing happened with the persecution and imprisonment of the leaders of the formal opposition, in which the Sovereignty Law, the Cyber Crimes Law and the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code were created, in order to legally validate the persecution and arbitrary detention of up to 90 days. without formal accusation against opponents,” said Morazán.
More than 50 opposition leaders are currently in prison in Nicaragua, including six presidential candidates who intended to participate in the November 2021 elections.
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