Human rights organizations announced this week that the journalist and founder of the 100% News Channel, Miguel Mora, began a hunger strike in the maximum security prison where he remains, after being arrested for the second time after announcing his decision to run for president in 2021.
Mora has adopted this measure as a form of protest so that the Nicaraguan authorities allow him to see his son with a disability, with whom he has had no contact since his arrest more than a year ago, according to the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again.
Yader Valdivia, a lawyer for the Collective, commented to the voice of america that Mora also demands that while he is incarcerated he be guaranteed a minimum treatment.
“This measure taken by Mora is extreme and legitimate. Mora does not ask for his freedom that all Nicaraguans demand, he demands that minimum rights be respected during his detention and that he be allowed to enter a bible or see his son, ”he sentenced.
According to Valdivia, the government of President Daniel Ortega has justified the decision not to allow Mora’s son to enter because “they do not have the necessary conditions because he uses a wheelchair,” something that the expert considers absurd.
“There are other political prisoners, like Tamara Dávila who has not been able to see her daughter either, there is a refusal so that political prisoners cannot see their children, their rights are also violated because they are in maximum security cells, not in a system conventional penitentiary,” he added.
Mora was arrested in June 2021 amid an escalation of persecution against critics of Ortega in that election year. He was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison for the alleged crime of “undermining national integrity.”
The United States said at the time thatthe trials “were a mockery” where due process was not respected.
“Behind closed doors and with innumerable procedural irregularities, these trials are a mockery of justice and due process,” a State Department spokesman told the newspaper. VOA.
According to the organization Independent Journalists of Nicaragua, the prison conditions of the founder of 100%Noticias are critical.
“We know that the situation of those who are in Chipote or in other penitentiary centers in Nicaragua is deplorable. They do not even allow a bible to those who have requested it, nor blankets for the cold, “said Víctor Manuel Pérez of the organization of Independent Journalists of Nicaragua (PCIN).
Other inmates in harsh conditions
Mora’s request was known after a new visit made by his family this week.
Relatives of another group of political prisoners issued a statement on Tuesday where they also reported on the condition of the rest of the opponents. They assured that “the arbitrariness and lack of compliance with the law in the visitation regime” persists.
Similarly, they indicated that they were informed “an hour before they had to show up” and as for the parcel, some were refused the entry of the scarce food that they have accepted other times.
“The policy of not entering reading and writing material is maintained, going so far as to remove food labels so that they cannot read anything at all. We demand the entry of reading and writing material,” the relatives of the inmates said in a statement.
They also said that Sandinista dissidents Ana Margarita Vigil, Suyen Barahona, former guerrilla Dora María Téllez and Tamara Dávila are being kept in isolation.
They denounced the continuing lack of specialized medical care for political prisoners Pedro Vásquez, a former employee of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation; the journalist Miguel Mendoza; and Juan Lorenzo Holman, general manager of La Prensa.
“Many of the opponents’ health problems are associated with the precarious conditions in which they are kept, such as the concrete slabs on which they sleep, the lack of pillows and blankets,” among other things.
The authorities of the Ministry of the Interior have not ruled on the demands of the relatives of the political prisoners, nor has the administration of Daniel Ortega.
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