MEP Javier Nart, from the political group Renovar Europa in the European Parliament, through a letter sent to the Nicaraguan ambassador to Belgium, Irana Venerio Fernández, expressed his “concern about the situation” of the political prisoner Dora María Téllez, advocating because the Ortega-Murillo regime assumes prison conditions “ccorresponding to the minimum standards of the international community.
Political prisoner Dora María Téllez has been on a hunger strike for more than a week, an extreme measure she took to demand that the Ortega regime end the solitary confinement and torture to which she has been subjected for more than 15 months at the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ), known as El Chipote.
“I express my deep concern about the situation of Dora María Téllez, a leading figure in the recent history of Nicaragua. Her participation in the struggle for the freedom of the Nicaraguan people is a heroic milestone as a member of that Sandinista National Liberation Front, of that struggle that the world admired against the indecent dictatorship of the Somoza dynasty. I felt and am proud to have been a participant in that fight with whom she was Minister of Health and founder of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and always a Sandinista”, reads part of the letter sent by Nart on September 14.
“I want you to tell the authorities that Dora María Téllez’s prison conditions correspond to the minimum standards of the international community that calls itself civilized,” he added.
In addition, he recalled that President Daniel Ortega, accused of committing crimes against humanity against Nicaraguans, has betrayed “the ideals of freedom born in the struggle of Cesar Augusto Sandino and reborn in that Sandinista National Liberation Front.”
request prison visit
Nart asked Ambassador Venerio to convey to Daniel Ortega, remember him as “who was his partner”, his “desire to be able to visit Dora María Téllez in prison as well as other heroic comrades in struggle also imprisoned by the regime.”
“It breaks the soul to know the unspeakable prison conditions; solitary confinement, absence of light, poor nutrition, isolation from contact with relatives, in which they are kept for defending the ideals of the authentic FSLN, today betrayed,” he pointed out.
He also stressed that the death in prison of retired general Hugo Torres Jiménez, known as “comandante uno”, “is an indelible mark on the conscience of the one whom he freed from torture and prison for his entry into the house of the oligarch Chema Castillo in 1974, when he risked his life for dozens of comrades imprisoned by Somoza, among them Daniel Ortega, who owes his life to him and who is responsible for his imprisonment and death.”
Former Sandinista guerrilla fighter Hugo Torrez was imprisoned by the Ortega-Murillo regime in June 2021. He died on February 12, 2022 at the age of 73, after more than two months in which the Ortega dictatorship kept his physical whereabouts and health condition hidden.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo keeps more than 200 people imprisoned for political reasons in Nicaragua. International organizations and mechanisms have repeatedly requested to enter the country to verify the conditions of prisoners of conscience. However, the dictatorship rejects or does not even respond to the requests and even describes them as interfering.
