The International Parliamentary Commission of Solidarity for the Freedom of Political Prisoners arrived Wednesday afternoon in Costa Rica, a country from which they will depart to form a caravan this Friday to the border with Nicaragua with the aim of verifying the confinement conditions of the most of 190 political prisoners and demand their immediate release.
A delegation made up of three deputies from the Left Front and the Unity Workers (FITU), from Argentina, and representatives of different organizations from Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica, announced to the National Parliament that they intend to meet with the relatives of the inmates and “visit some of the detainees”.
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“Today there are more than 180 political prisoners in Nicaragua, mainly as a result of having mobilized during the 2018 protests that were harshly repressed by the government of (Daniel) Ortega. Some of them have received very harsh sentences of more than 10 years in prison just for the fact of having confronted these policies, ”said the Buenos Aires deputy for the Socialist Workers Party (PTS), Alejandrina Barry, at a press conference.
The delegation of South American parliamentarians plans to leave San José at 3 in the morning to be there first thing in the morning requesting entry to Nicaragua. “There is no legal impediment to entering Nicaragua, but if the Ortega regime does not allow us to enter, then it will be clear that they are hiding something about the conditions of political prisoners in Nicaragua,” said one of the parliamentarians.
For her part, deputy Luciana Echavarría added that “if Daniel Ortega does not allow us to enter Nicaragua, this will become more widely known internationally and more voices will join that external clamor demanding the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua. ».
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“We are going to meet with the relatives who are in Costa Rica and manage the possibility of visiting some of the detainees, although this depends on the will of the Nicaraguan government. This Commission calls for the freedom of prisoners from a clearly anti-imperialist position, that is, separating ourselves from the use that the United States and the political sectors of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie want to make of the repressive actions and the authoritarian character of the Ortega government, which we question from the left and not from the right, ”said MP Barry.
Relatives of political prisoners have denounced “serious” deterioration, being subjected to “constant torture and lack of food.” In addition, they reiterate that the human rights of all political prisoners must be respected, their lives and physical and emotional integrity must be protected until the unconditional release of prisoners of conscience occurs. They demand that these physical and psychological tortures stop.
