The indigenous leader of the Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast, alternate deputy and president of the political organization Yatama, remains arbitrarily imprisoned by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, with a drastic deterioration of her health and without receiving adequate medical attention from the regime’s jailers, denounced this Monday the organization defending prisoners of conscience, the Legal Defense Unit (UDJ).
Through its official social media accounts, the UDJ denounces that the indigenous leader has suffered deterioration in her health, worsened by the conditions in which she has been kept in the dictatorship’s prisons for almost a year.
“Nancy Elizabeth Enríquez is an indigenous leader, alternate deputy, mother of 5 children, grandmother and president of the YATAMA party. In prison she has not received medical attention and treatment to adequately deal with her chronic illnesses,” the UDJ denounces in a post on its X account.
He also added that Henríquez suffers from “diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver, gastritis, hair loss, rheumatic pain and cataracts.”
One year in prison
Henríquez is the president of the indigenous party Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Asla Takanka (Yatama). She was kidnapped by the police in the service of the dictatorship on Sunday, October 1, 2023, two days after the imprisonment of the Caribbean leader and deputy to the National Assembly, Brooklyn Rivera.
According to the account given to the media by a relative who witnessed the kidnapping, Henríquez was at home that day when the dictatorship’s repressive agents arrived. She was tricked into going to the District III Police station, along with a niece and her grandson, a three-year-old minor.
Related news: Nancy Henríquez sentenced to eight years in prison in a trial set up inside the “La Esperanza” prison
The regime’s henchmen told her that she would only be “interviewed” regarding the case of Brooklyn Rivera, who was already kidnapped.
“They put them in a van and while they were taking them to District II, they then changed the route to District III. From the moment they took her to District III, the screams and threats towards her began, they locked her up and we don’t know anything about her,” the relative told 100% Noticias at the time.
She was kept in a state of enforced disappearance for two months, until finally, the dictatorship tried her without the right to a defense and violating all due process. She was accused and sentenced to eight years in prison for the alleged crime of “undermining national integrity.” She remains imprisoned in the La Esperanza Comprehensive Women’s Penitentiary Center in Managua.
Currently, the dictatorship is holding the three most visible indigenous leaders of the North Caribbean Coast in prison. In addition to Henríquez, Brooklyn Rivera, who has been in a state of forced disappearance for a year, is also incarcerated. More recently, Steadman Fagot, former presidential advisor and co-founder of Yatama, was imprisoned.
In addition, 34 other prisoners of conscience remain in the regime’s prisons who were not released along with the group of 135 who were recently exiled to Guatemala.
