The 50 political prisoners who are detained in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ), known as El Chipote, are subjected to a solitary confinement regime by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. One of them is the sports journalist and chronicler Miguel Mendoza, who is on Monday, October 31, 43 days on a hunger strike to be allowed to reunite with his eight-year-old daughter, Alejandra.
Mendoza was arrested on June 21, 2021, he has not seen his little girl for 497 days, who has asked, through messages on social networks, to allow her to hug her father. Since then, the political prisoner and his relatives have demanded that the dictatorship authorize visits for his daughter. The last time his family knew of his health status was on August 27.
Alejandra Mendoza has sent various video messages, drawings and texts so that the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship will let her exercise her right to see and communicate with her imprisoned father, but so far the attempts of the father and daughter have been ignored and still they have been allowed at least one visit. The lawyer for the prisoner of conscience has filed more than 10 appeals and none have been answered.
Related news: Miguel Mendoza adds 37 days on hunger strike as a method of pressure to see his daughter
The journalist and critic of the government of Daniel Ortega was convicted of the crimes of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news. The “evidence” was the posts on his Twitter account. The Ortega justice sentenced him to nine years in prison.
During his confinement, Miguel Mendoza has lost more than 30 pounds in prison and when he was presented in the courts of Managua, he looked thin. His relatives have denounced that he suffers from several illnesses that are not treated by a specialist doctor, a situation that is repeated with all the detainees in the cells of the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
It has been more than two months since his relatives had the last visit and they fear for his physical and health condition. The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners updated the number of hostages of conscience to 219 as of September 2022. Most have been charged with crimes of treason under a set of repressive laws created to persecute the opposition.
