Five relatives who were kidnapped by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, between September 13 and 15, to pressure opponents they were seeking to imprison to surrender to the Police, served two weeks of being detained “arbitrarily and illegally” and under “total incommunicado detention” in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote.
The citizens captured to pressure persecuted opponents to surrender are: Jannine Horvilleur Cuadra, Ana Carolina Alvarez Horvilleur, both Nicaraguan-French citizens, Félix Roiz and Freddy Porras. The fifth family member detained so far has not been publicly identified at the request of his family.
The politically persecuted Javier Álvarez Zamora, husband of Jeannine Horvilleur Cuadra, 63, father of Ana Carolina Álvarez Horvilleur, 43, and father-in-law of Félix Roiz Sotomayor, 55, arrested on September 13 and 14, respectively, denounced that after two weeks of detention the circumstances of his three relatives “are the same” and the police authorities have so far not allowed them “any visit or communication.”
“None of the relatives have been allowed to see them. We don’t know what condition they are in. We don’t know if they, as mother and daughter, are together or if they are isolated,” Álvarez said.
In an interview with the program This weekon September 17, Álvarez denounced the arrest of his three relatives, reporting that on September 13, at about 10:00 pm, the Police came looking for him at his house and, after checking everything and not finding him, they They took his wife and daughter and, a day later, his son-in-law.
The opponent valued that the detention of his relatives “is a new level of repression, from which we were suffering before”, since now the regime applies the policy of “if we don’t catch you, your family is the one that is going to pay”.
Álvarez rescued in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL that, despite how difficult these two weeks of the arbitrary and illegal kidnapping of his three relatives have been, he received the authorization to deliver the medicines they require as a good sign. In addition, he mentioned that they have been allowed to bring them “water, cookies, juices, yogurt and some socks for the cold, but they have not allowed a blanket, something to help them with the cold at night and early morning.”
“My wife is a 63-year-old person, as I have said before, she is a survivor of left breast cancer, she underwent surgery where her breast was removed and she has to permanently take her medicines and take care of the case. My daughter is a 43-year-old person, she has her ailments, and my son-in-law is a 55-year-old person, that is, they are people, my wife is practically elderly, and my daughter and her husband are already adults who have illnesses.” , he indicated.
no accusation
He denounced that his three detained relatives are “in a kind of legal limbo”, because “there is no accusation, there is no other action against them, only that they are detained there.”
“A habeas corpus resource has already been introduced and was rejected by the appellate judges, but we are going to continue insisting through legal channels and we will continue denouncing the detention,” he warned.
He explained that he has denounced the arbitrary detention of his three relatives before the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the European Union (EU), the Government of France, since his wife and daughter, in addition to having Nicaraguan nationality, have French nationality by family descent, and before the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective.
“What I ask the regime is to set them free, to set Jeannine free, to set Ana Carolina free, to set Félix free, they have not committed any crime, they are not part of any political activity. Each of them has dedicated himself to his life and his work. It is not a crime to be a relative of an opponent, so I ask that their human rights be respected, that they be given their immediate freedom and that they be able to resume their lives,” Álvarez urged.
Freddy Porras “is incommunicado”
Juan Carlos Arce, from the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective, affirmed that as an organization they also received the case of the arrest of the merchant Freddy Porras, 50, brother of Dulce Porras, leader of Unamos in Carazo, and current political exile.
The citizen was captured and beaten by the Police at his home in Jinotepe, Carazo, on September 15 and is currently being held under conditions similar to those of Álvarez’s relatives, that is, he has not been charged with any crime, he has not received visits from his relatives and is in “total incommunicado” in El Chipote.
“The case of Freddy Porras joins the new pattern executed by the regime against families. In other words, the regime in retaliation against Dulce has attacked Freddy. So, we are talking about a regime that does not have any minimum standard of respect, ”he pointed out.
In condition of “forced disappearance”
Arce indicated that these family members detained for having a link with persecuted politicians “are in a condition of forced disappearance”, since “none of them has been presented before a competent authority, as indicated by the Political Constitution in relation to due guarantees. process and the same Code of Criminal Procedure”.
“They are in an incommunicado situation. They have not been allowed to physically meet with their families, nor with their defense attorneys, which is serious because it leaves them in a defenseless situation, in a torture center, in such a way that this situation of forced disappearance is worrying,” he added.
The defender assured that in Nicaragua “no one is safe”, since the country is under “a regime that attacks entire families to guarantee its repressive objective.”
He stated that as a Collective they have reported this new pattern of human rights violations to the inter-American human rights system, such as the IACHR, and to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In addition, he stressed that “in the coming weeks we will have the opportunity to denounce these situations before the Group of Experts created by the United Nations Human Rights Council in March of this year, which has a mandate aimed at seeking the Justice”.
Currently, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo keeps more than 200 people imprisoned for political reasons in Nicaragua. National and international human rights organizations have demanded the freedom of each of these people who, they denounce, continue to suffer torture and ill-treatment in the different prisons of the country.
