The MEP Gabriel Mató, of the Popular Party (PP), demanded that the Nicaraguan regime report on the political prisoner Felix Maradiaga, who has gone —like other hostages of conscience— for 83 days without receiving a visit from his relatives.
“As of today, we still have not received news from the El Chipote prison. #FelixMaradiaga. Nicaragua’s dictatorial regime seems to have no limits. We demand to know if he’s okay. Now! », Demanded the European parliamentarian through his Twitter account.
Related news: Maradiaga’s situation “behind bars is unsustainable”, denounces MEP Gabriel Mato
At the end of September, Mato joined the world campaign “Breaking chains, sponsor a political prisoner”, which seeks to make visible the situation and reality of political prisoners around the world, give them a voice and demand justice and respect for all of them.
According to the European politician, the objective of the campaign is to support “those who have been immorally imprisoned by totalitarian governments, even isolated and tortured.”
For her part, Berta Valle, wife of the former presidential candidate, sued the authorities of “El Nuevo Chipote” to show the prisoner of conscience that he has been incarcerated for more than 17 months.
Related news: Peter Göttel Award awarded to Félix Maradiaga for his “tireless commitment to a free Nicaragua”
“83 days of total incommunicado political prisoners in El Chipote suffer, including my husband @maradiaga. We demand that the #ShowNow. Solitary confinement constitutes torture, we fear for their lives!” Valle expressed through his Twitter account.
Maradiaga was captured on June 8, 2021 a few meters from the Public Ministry in Managua, minutes before he had been questioned by Daniel Ortega’s prosecutors. After his arrest, he was transferred to “El Nuevo Chipote”, a well-known torture center, according to the relatives of political prisoners.
The Ortega justice imposed a sentence of 13 years in prison. The hostage of conscience faced seven hearings that, according to his defenders, were “riddled with irregularities” that culminated in a guilty verdict. The dictatorship accused him of violating Law 1055, the Sovereignty Law, a legal tool approved by the dictatorship’s deputies to persecute, imprison, and prosecute opponents of the Ortega-Murillo regime.
The last time Maradiaga received a visit from one of his relatives was at the end of August and he was exhibited for the second time in the Managua courts in a supposed “informative hearing” and also exhibited in the government propaganda media.
