Judges Octavio Rothschuh Andino; Ángela Dávila Navarrete and Rosa Argentina Solís, all from the Managua Court of Appeals, were added to a list of 14 Ortega judges for whom MEPs demand sanctions from the European Union. This list —of 17 in total— is part of a resolution of the European Parliament (EP)which will be voted on this Thursday, May 9, and which is expected to have majority support.
According to the draft resolution, the European Parliament “condemns the illegitimate judicial rulings that only confirm the repressive drift of the Nicaraguan regime and that the judges have become the arm of repression and responsible for human rights violations.”
The MEPs urge “the European Union to hold the Nicaraguan regime accountable, in particular its judges, for the repression in the country and the judicial proceedings initiated against opposition figures and other critics”, for which they “ask the Council to immediately start the procedures to include the judges in the list of people sanctioned by the EU”.
The judges proposed for sanctions are: Nadia Camila Tardencilla; Angel Jeancarlos Fernández González; Ulisa Yaoska Tapia Silva; Rosa Velia Baca Cardoza; Veronica Fiallos Moncada; Luden Martin Quiroz Garcia; Karen Vanessa Chavarria; Felix Ernesto Salmeron Moreno; Nancy Aguirre Gudiel.
They complete the list: William Irving Howard López; Erick Ramón Laguna Averruz; Melvin Leopoldo Vargas Garcia; Irma Oralia Laguna Cruz and Rolando Sanarrusia.
These 14 Ortega judges were already included in the proposed resolution of the groups of the European People’s Party Y Renew Europe; however, at the last minute the three Managua Appeals magistrates were included, who according to MEPs “have also participated in the deprivation of procedural and substantive rights of illegally convicted (political prisoners).”
The EU has sanctioned more than 20 high-ranking officials of the regime, including Vice President Rosario Murillo, accused of human rights violations in Nicaragua. Those sanctioned have their assets immobilized and, in addition, EU citizens and companies are subject to the prohibition of making funds available to them.
“Judges help carry out repression”
This Wednesday, in a debate on the proposed resolution, MEP Alicia Homs Ginel, from the Socialists and Democrats group, stressed that “in recent months we have witnessed the clear instrumentalization of repressive justice in Nicaragua.”
“The Nicaraguan courts have dedicated themselves to handing down absolutely disproportionate sentences against political prisoners, in processes that were clearly corrupt and that offered no guarantees of transparency to the accused. For this reason, this resolution, and it is what we have to focus on, asks for sanctions for the judges, since they are helping Ortega to carry out that repression,” said Homs.
The 14 judges on the list have sentenced 55 of 68 political prisoners captured in the latest wave of repression in the context of the general elections of 2021. Mostly, civic, social, political, student leaders and human rights defenders, who were sentenced to between seven and thirteen years in prison.
MEP Hermann Tertsch, from the Conservatives and Reformists group, assured that “Nicaraguans live in a permanent and terrible nightmare, in which the repression of recent years has reached unprecedented levels. It has reached them because the regime feels capable of doing so, and that impunity is because it feels protected.”
“The judges commit barbarities and immense iniquities against all opponents, against all unbelievers, and they do it because they have that impunity,” he added.
MEP Leopoldo López Gil, of the European People’s Party, pointed out that “judges and prosecutors, submissive to the Ortega Murillo family, have systematically violated procedural guarantees, becoming accomplices of the dictatorship and violators of human rights.”
“Today we ask that their names be included in the list of those sanctioned by the European Union, the victims of that regime deserve it,” he said.
Investigate Ortega
In point nine, the proposed resolution “calls on the member states and the UN Security Council, in accordance with articles 13 and 14 of the Rome Statute, to open a formal investigation through the International Criminal Court into Nicaragua and Daniel Ortega for crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.”
According to article 7 of the Rome Statute, the following are considered crimes against humanity: murder; extermination; slavery; deportation or forced population transfer; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental norms of international law; torture; enforced disappearance; and persecution of a group or collectivity with its own identity based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or gender reasons.
It is the first time that a draft resolution of the European Parliament points to an investigation against Ortega. Since 2018, MEPs have approved six resolutions on the Nicaraguan situation. One in May 2018; another in March 2019 —after the visit of a delegation of MEPs to the country—; a third in December 2019; a fourth in October 2020; the fifth in July 2021; and the last one last December.
Release of political prisoners
In all its resolutions, the Europarliament has demanded the release of political prisoners. In the recent text, they call for “immediate and unconditional release of those detained since April 2018 and annul the judicial proceedings against them, and allow a safe return of all refugees and exiles.”
In addition, they urge “the Nicaraguan authorities to restore guarantees for the full exercise of civil and political rights for all Nicaraguans, to cease the persecution of the democratic opposition, the press and civil society.”
MEPs “strongly condemn the death of Mr. Hugo Torres during his arrest.” As well as “the arrest of Father Manuel Salvador García on June 1, 2022, who remains in preventive detention and requests his immediate release.”
NGO closures
The proposed resolution also “condemns” that “more than 400 NGOs have been forced to stop working in Nicaragua, including the Nicaraguan Academy of Language.”
The MEPs call on “the Nicaraguan authorities to stop improperly closing NGOs and to restore the legal personality of all organizations, political parties, universities and media outlets that have been arbitrarily closed, as well as to return all assets , documents and equipment improperly seized”.
During the debate, the vice president of the European Parliament, the Czech Dita Charanzová, said that the cancellation of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language “is an unprecedented decision on the continent and in the Spanish-speaking world. The Ortega regime that devastates and kicks human rights.”
The regime maintains a crusade against the social organisms that it has left 452 NGOs canceled since 2018of which 378 have been settled so far in 2022.
In addition, they expressed “their deep concern over the repression of the free and independent media in the country, which has forced more than 100 journalists into exile.”
