Nicaraguan justice, close to President Daniel Ortega, presented this Tuesday for the first time a group of political prisoners detained in 2021 before the presidential elections, in which Ortega was re-elected.
The elections were branded as fraudulent by the international community after Ortega imprisoned all the opponents who intended to participate in the process and other opposition leaders.
Among the opponents presented this Tuesday are the candidates for the presidency Miguel Mora, Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Medardo Mairena.
Also the opposition leaders Lesther Alemán and Max Jeréz, who participated during the first national dialogue in 2018, when the protests against President Daniel Ortega began.
According to a Nicaraguan official portal, the opponents were summoned for “individual causes” and it is expected that the status of the same will be announced during the day.
The presentation of the opponents, who have been sentenced in legal proceedings marked as “null” by the international community, comes a day after relatives of the prisoners denounced their health situation at a press conference after a year of “confinement” in the maximum security prison in Managua known as El Chipote.
The political situation in Nicaragua is one of the most serious in the region, according to analysts. Evan Illis, an expert in International Relations, indicated that since 2018 and especially since the November 2021 elections “the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is increasing repression, trying to close the remaining civic spaces” in Nicaragua.
Washington has repeatedly demanded the release of political prisoners and has imposed sanctions against the Ortega administration.
US officials on Monday told the VOA that the US contemplates curb imports from Nicaragua to put pressure on Ortega.
Guatemalan lawyer Stuardo Ralón, who serves as first vice president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIHD), condemned the situation in which political prisoners find themselves in Nicaragua.
“I condemn the serious conditions of detention of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Conscience in Nicaragua, who must be released immediately,” Ralón said on Twitter.
News in development
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