The governments of Gabriel Boric, in Chile, and Gustavo Petro, in Colombia, have shown their rejection and “concern”, respectively, for the stripping of the nationality of more than 300 Nicaraguan critics of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its concern about the decision to withdraw the Nicaraguan nationality of another 94 citizens, announced by the Court of Appeals of the Managua District on February 16, 2023,” said the Colombian Foreign Ministry. in a statement published this Friday, February 17.
It added that it “regrets the government initiative to promote in the National Assembly the reform of the articles of the Political Constitution that regulate the conditions of acquisition, loss and recovery of nationality.”
The statement stressed that “these measures violate the right to nationality, contemplated in a set of international legal instruments, including, among others, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, a treaty to which Nicaragua is a State party.” .
According to Chilean media, the chancellor of that countryAntonia Urrejola said that the situation in Nicaragua “is extremely serious.”
“It seems to us that what has been taking shape for several years now, and the events of recent weeks show it, is that every day it is a totalitarian dictatorship where any type of dissent is persecuted.”
Urrejola has closely followed the human rights crisis in Nicaraguasince 2018. Before arriving at the Chilean Foreign Ministry, she served as president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and as rapporteur for Nicaragua of that organization.
The foreign minister assured that “from Chile we are not only going to continue denouncing this situation, but we are going to continue taking the appropriate actions to support these people who are being persecuted in the first place, but also to support democratization in Nicaragua.”
“We hope that the rest of the international community is up to it,” he added.
More than 300 stateless Nicaraguans
In the last eight days, 317 Nicaraguans were stripped of their nationality, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, sentenced to more than 26 years in prison after refusing to be exiled by the government of President Ortega along with 222 political prisoners released and expelled to the United States on February 9.
In a new list of 94 Nicaraguans declared stateless, announced on Wednesday, include the writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli; the director of CONFIDENCIAL and Esta Semana, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and his wife Desirée Elizondo; the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez; the president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), Vilma Núñez; and the former commander of the revolution Luis Carrión.
According to the resolution of the presiding magistrate of the Managua Court of Appeals, Ernesto Rodríguez, these Nicaraguans had been accused by the Public Prosecutor for the crimes of conspiracy to undermine national integrity in real competition with the crime of spreading false news through of information and communication technology, all to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua and society.
Mexico “attentive” to respect for human rights
The Government of Mexico assured on Thursday that it is giving “timely follow-up” to the situation of the exiled “Nicaraguan people” and affirmed that it is “attentive” to “respect and protect” their human rights, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE). ), in a statement in response to questions from the Efe news agency.
It maintained that “in accordance with one of its main principles of foreign policy,” Mexico “will remain attentive to the respect and protection of the human rights of this group of people, including their rights to nationality and not to be arbitrarily deprived of it.” ”.
“And to the use and enjoyment of their assets and property unless it is confiscated or restricted for justified reasons provided by law and through the payment of fair compensation,” he added.
Mexico has maintained a controversial ambiguity in the face of the acute political crisis that Nicaragua is experiencing and the allegations of repression of opponents by the Ortega government.
