February 17, 2023, 4:00 AM
February 17, 2023, 4:00 AM
Nicaragua declared 94 opponents “traitors to the homeland” exiles, among them the writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli, stripping them of their nationality and disqualifying them for life from holding public office. A measure that alarmed the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres.
In addition to Belli and Ramírez, who was vice president of the Sandinista government in the 1980s headed by current president Daniel Ortega, Among those sanctioned are the Catholic Bishop Silvio Báez, former guerrilla commanders Luis Carrión and Mónica Baltodano, and human rights activist Vilma Núñez.
On the sanctioned list there are politicians from different parties and opposition formations, former government officials, former Sandinista guerrillas, activists from non-governmental organizations, and journalists.
The president of the Court of Appeals of Managua, Ernesto Rodríguez Mejía, read before official media the resolution that stripped the 94 people of their Nicaraguan nationality considered “fugitives from justice”.
“The defendants carried out and continue to carry out criminal acts to the detriment of peace, sovereignty, independence and self-determination of the Nicaraguan people, inciting the destabilization of the country, promoting economic, commercial and financial blockades, all to the detriment of peace. and the well-being of the population”, indicated the magistrate.
“Because of these facts, the defendants cannot be considered Nicaraguan citizens,” he added.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Central America condemned “in the most energetic way this new wave of violations to human rights”.
“We call on the State to immediately cease the persecution and reprisals against human rights defenders and dissident voices, and restore all their rights and freedoms,” the Office tweeted.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said he was “alarmed” by the government’s decision Nicaraguan government to strip 94 opponents of their nationality and property, their spokesman said.
“The Secretary General was alarmed to see the Nicaraguan government’s decision to strip 94 of its citizens of their civil and political rights, in particular nationality and the right to property,” Guterres said through his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.
“The right to nationality is a fundamental right. There must be no persecution or reprisals against human rights defenders or people who express critical views,” he added.
“It should be remembered that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that everyone has the right to a nationality and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of it,” he recalled.
Guterres “urges the Government to release the people who remain still under the same conditions without stripping them of their nationality,” Dujarric said.
