One year after the imprisonment of the student leaders Lesther Alemán and Max Jerez, we remember the messages they recorded before their arrest by the Police, at the service of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. Both made a call to the population to “continue” the fight for the freedom of Nicaragua and of all political prisoners.
“If you are watching this video, it is because I am detained by the dictatorship or I am incommunicado, thus adding to the long list of political prisoners of the Ortega regime. This is the time to continue, the dictatorship wants to end hope, we must continue this fight for the freedom of the Nicaraguan people together,” Jerez said in the video recorded before his arrest on July 5, 2021.
Alemán, for his part, assured that he is not a traitor to the country and that he has never done anything against Nicaraguans. “I am not guilty of a crime that is imputed to me, I have not resorted to any strategy of violence; I have not acted outside the legal framework either, that is why I am clean, they would have me as an ornament on the prison stage for what seems to be a guillotine, “said Alemán.
Related news: Lesther Alemán and Max Jerez “look giant in the face of the moral smallness of their jailers”
«Let us not fall into despair, into immobilization; Let’s continue together organizing ourselves to defeat the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, together we will recover our freedom, “added Jerez.
Alemán encouraged those who were released that “they must continue” in the fight for democracy. In addition, he declared that he believes in the electoral process as the “final solution” to the serious human rights crisis in the country.
“I also believe in the conviction that a youth committed to leaving this regime has. For me they do not have to stop at that stage, to demand the freedom of those who are detained. Demanding freedom for Nicaragua is the priority,” said Alemán, when the dictatorship had not yet ventured to annihilate the Citizens for Freedom party, the last remaining political alternative and of which the university leaders were allies and tried to participate in the conflict, which in the end Ortega did not want to risk.
This July 5, the student leaders have spent a year in captivity in the cells of the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ), known as “El Nuevo Chipote”, a center where they are subjected to torture, according to reports from their families.
student leaders and political prisoners they were detained “arbitrarily” by the Police at the service of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, four months before the presidential elections in November of that year, elections not recognized by more than 40 countries.
Lesther Alemán and Max Jerez were sentenced to 13 years in prison and disqualification from holding public office for the alleged crime of “undermining national integrity”, in a judicial process that was classified as “arbitrary” and riddled with irregularities, according to their defense attorneys.
