Journalist Miguel Mendoza is one of the political prisoners denied the right to see and communicate with their children by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. His little daughter Alejandra, eight years old, has not seen him in 427 days, after being arbitrarily detained in her home on June 21, 2021, 14 months ago.
“Hello daddy, I’ve gotten very sick, because I haven’t seen you for more than a year. I need you. Your daughter Alejandra », reads in a letter that the minor wrote to her imprisoned father.
«Communication between father and daughter is a right and Alejandra has been denied it without cause and without legal justification for 14 months. Through the lawyer (Miguel’s technical defense) several requests have been made for the girl to see her father, but they do not give an answer and when I have asked verbally, they express that it is not “authorized” “, denounced Margin Pozo, wife by Miguel Mendoza.
During these 14 months, the authorities of the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) prevent the girl’s letters and drawings from being delivered to her father, despite the fact that her lawyer has filed 11 appeals before the Managua Court of Appeals and none has been answered. The forced separation between Miguel Mendoza and his daughter Alejandra has caused damage to the girl’s physical and emotional health, according to her mother.
“It has been psychological torture for her. And it’s not fair for an innocent girl to go through so much pain and suffering. Alejandra needs to see her father. She expresses: “My heart is sad and sick, because I haven’t seen my daddy” », she added.
Related news: Miguel Mendoza’s daughter: “My heart is sad and sick, because I haven’t seen my daddy”
Political prisoners Miguel Mora, Tamara Dávila, Suyen Barahona, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Róger Reyes also experience this same situation of forced separation from their sons and daughters. All of them have been denied the right to communicate by any means with their offspring.
«Félix (Maradiaga) has insisted on his desire to speak with Alejandra, with us, to be able to communicate. We can’t even have a phone call, a letter, or a drawing from our daughter Alejandra. We demand that we be allowed to have those calls,” said communicator Berta Valle, wife of political prisoner Félix Maradiaga who has been detained for more than 440 days.
“My daughter has not had any contact with her father. In all this time, neither my daughter nor I have been allowed a phone call or a letter, as Nicaraguan law says. At the same time, as family members, we demand regular visits. It is not a gift, this is something that the law gives us as a family, it is a duty that as a State must guarantee while our relatives continue to be unjustly kidnapped,” added Victoria Cárdenas, wife of political prisoner Juan Sebastián Chamorro.
A lawyer, on condition of anonymity, explained to Article 66 that visits between prisoners of conscience and their sons and daughters should be every 15 days because it is a right of children and adolescents who are protected in the Family Code. The jurist pointed out that the law establishes that fathers, mothers, sons and daughters must maintain communication and that this right is not extinguished because the parents are in prison.
Dávila and Mora saw their children this weekend
The only mechanism that has been effective so that the political prisoners Tamara Dávila and Miguel Mora could see their children last Saturday, August 20, was a hunger strike. The regime relented and allowed both prisoners of conscience to meet them after 15 months under forced separation.
The relatives of the political prisoners denounced that a visit is not enough and demanded that the authorities draw up a schedule of visits so that the children and adolescents can maintain regular communication with their parents twice a month and that the laws that protect the rights of minors.
The Mesoamerican Initiative of Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) joined the demand for the regularization of visits every 15 days between political prisoners and their sons and daughters. On their Twitter account they denounced that a single visit is not enough. “Tamara and the rest of the political prisoners must be able to see their sons and daughters regularly. It is your right!” the human rights organization wrote on the social network.
