“They stripped you naked and threw you face down on the ground”, or “every day the same five men raped me, sometimes they took turns during the day, on several occasions I wanted them to kill me”; those quotes are only two of the multiple testimonies compiled by the Nicaragua Human Rights Collective Nunca+, and published recently in the framework of the International Day in Support of Torture.
This report, based on 158 testimonies, reveals that some 40 different types of torture “at the hands of the State” have been committed in Nicaragua since the beginning of the political crisis that erupted in this Central American country in 2018 and continues until the date.
Gonzalo Carrión, from the Nicaragua Human Rights Collective Nunca+, told the voice of america that what “initially began as a policy of arrests and torture to suppress protests and punish people who rose up against the regime evolved and was sustained over time as a tool to ensure impunity and impunity for the ruling couple” .
The abuses against opponents would have occurred in various penal centers and other “clandestine” places during the protests against President Daniel Ortega at the hands of police officers and people related to the ruling party, the report concludes.
The forms of torture recorded range from beatings, to the imposition of electric shocks, strangulation, lacerations, and sexual abuse.
The government of Daniel Ortega did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the VOA.
A new pattern: temporary disappearance
The agency’s report shows a new pattern against opponents of the Nicaraguan government: temporary disappearance. This method, the report explains, is applied to detainees who are not charged or brought immediately to justice.
On the other hand, from the collective, Carrión said that the relatives of some political prisoners are also subjected to cruel treatment and make them suffer, “as their loved ones suffer in prison.”
“Torture transcends dates as does the pain of so many people who demand freedom in Nicaragua. Torture is a crime of international order and is one of the crimes against humanity and the Collective, since it was founded in exile, has been proposed to continue documenting through the initiative that we started”, concludes Carrión.
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