The Nicaraguan opposition leader Tamara Dávila, convicted of crimes considered “treason against the country”, is deteriorating as a result of isolation, incommunicado detention and torture after 13 months in prison, according to what her family denounced on Monday.
Dávila, 41, who was a strong, expressive woman who wore her hair short, is seen in a drawing released by her family with long hair, a gaunt face, and a skeletal neck and shoulders.
“It has impacted me a lot. Tamara has lost about 40 pounds (18 kilos), to the point that her body looks distorted, ”said a young woman who identified herself only as Dávila’s cousin, in a public video.
“She says that she remains hungry, that many times they don’t give her the nutritional drinks that our family brings her. We are distraught and alarmed, and that is why we are sharing with the world what Tamara looks like after a year of torture,” she added.
WHO IS TAMARA DAVILA?
Dávila, a member of the opposition Democratic Renovating Union (Unamos, former Sandinista Renovating Movement, MRS), is also a leader of the Blue and White National Unity, a feminist, human rights defender, and a political activist.
Related news: Opponents react to Tamara Dávila’s identikit: «It hurts to see you like this. Your dignity inspires us!”
She was sentenced last February to eight years in prison for the crime of conspiracy to undermine national integrity, eight months after her capture.
“She was kidnapped, assaulted and her house arbitrarily searched, in front of her five-year-old daughter,” her family said in a public statement.
“For 80 days she was missing and to date she has been incommunicado and in total isolation for 394 days. During that time she has not been able to see or communicate in any way with her daughter, and she has received only eight visits from her relatives,” she continued.
The family also assured that Dávila “has not had any meeting with his lawyer.”
“TRAIN YOUR MIND TO FOLLOW SOLE”
These conditions have already been denounced by the relatives of other “political prisoners”, based on the information they obtain from the convicts in the prison known as “Chipote”, which has been denounced by human rights defenders in Nicaragua as a alleged torture center of the National Police.
According to relatives, Dávila, a psychologist by profession, and a “super sociable” woman, who “loves to read, dance, listen to music, swim, and loves the beach”, uses her academic knowledge to face confinement and isolation. .
“During this year of solitary confinement, she has trained her mind to remain sane and focused: she meditates, prays, sings, and writes stories for her daughter in her head, lacking pencil and paper, to which she does not have access,” they pointed out.
Related news: They show a spoken portrait of Tamara Dávila, she is 40 pounds less
Dávila is one of 190 inmates in Nicaragua who are considered “political prisoners” of President Daniel Ortega, who has branded imprisoned, tried and convicted opponents as “traitors to the country” and “sons of bitches of the Yankee imperialists.”
The relatives of the “political prisoners” have shown “spoken portraits” of the opposition leaders Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, and the manager of the newspaper La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, in which they were observed to be damaged.
The government reacted by showing images of Maradiaga, in which the opposition leader seemed closer to his “spoken portrait” than to the man he was before he was captured.
Most of the “political prisoners” were locked up in the context of the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua that began in April 2018 with anti-government demonstrations that were reduced with attacks that, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), left at least 355 dead, of which Ortega has recognized 200.
The crisis deepened in last November’s controversial elections, when Ortega was re-elected to office once again, with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, and seven of his potential rivals in prison plus two in exile.
