Opposition leaders and human rights defenders are demanding that the Ortega-Murillo regime present retired Army Major Eddie González and “they have to present him alive” because, according to versions spread on social media, when he resisted being kidnapped by the Ortega police with bullets, he was only injured, although other versions maintain that he was only beaten.
On July 14, at least three patrols of the Ortega police, reinforced by paramilitaries and plainclothes police intelligence agents, showed up at the home of the retired major and former military intelligence officer, to take him prisoner for having raised his voice in denunciation of the arrest and apparent banishment of his sister, the journalist Nohelia González.
The journalist was kidnapped by the police in Managua, after the closure of the Catholic radio station Radio Maria, for which she worked. Her whereabouts are still unknown.
The former officer denounced on his social networks what had happened to his sister and the police went to kidnap him from his home, without a search or arrest warrant, but González, with extensive combat experience since the times of the guerrilla against Somoza and with military studies in Cuba and Russia, did not allow himself to be kidnapped without first resisting with gunfire, in which he would have injured two or three agents of the regime and, according to some versions, he himself would have been injured, hit by bullets fired by the regime’s henchmen.
Although unconfirmed reports claim that the former soldier was actually only beaten.
The opposition leader and former political prisoner exiled by the dictatorship Ana Margarita Vijil, Through his personal X account, he demands that the Ortega-Murillo regime provide news about the whereabouts and health condition of Major González.
“Where is retired Major Eddie Gonzalez? He was wounded by the police and taken to an unknown location. The police have not given any explanation for what happened. They took him alive, we want him back alive!” Vijil demands.
For his part, the opposition leader in exile Hector Mairena, Through his social networks, he joined the demand for respect for the physical integrity of the retired military man.
“The dictatorship must be held accountable for the life and physical integrity of Eddie González,” Mairena said.
Calidh denounces increase in police brutality
Following the Estelí incident, which saw the first reported resistance to a police raid using bullets since 2018, the Inter-American Legal Assistance Center for Human Rights (Calidh) expressed concern about the increase in “police brutality” in Nicaragua, ordered and encouraged by dictators Ortega and Murillo.
Nicaraguan lawyer and executive secretary of Calidh, Danny Ramírez-Ayerdiz, consulted by Article 66said that the defense organization is concerned and condemns this “increase in brutality, violence and extreme punishment exercised by the National Police against citizens.”
The defender said that, in the case of citizen González, from Estelí, who was forced to defend himself with bullets during the arbitrary police raid on his home, it is evident that in the country, the dictatorship imposes with increasing violence the silence on the population that now cannot speak “not even regarding human rights violations against their relatives.”
“This means that society must be immobilized, silenced, not demanding respect for its rights. If you speak up, you will be the next political prisoner or you will be shot,” denounced the human rights activist.
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Ramírez-Ayerdiz also denounced that the dictatorship’s police continue to commit atrocities against Nicaraguans, as can be seen in videos posted on social media, where police officers are seen handling former military officer González in the worst possible way, almost dragging him and throwing him violently onto a stretcher in a hospital, despite his condition of being wounded or badly beaten.
He recalled that dictators Ortega and Murillo have already shown how inhumane they are and the brutality they can order, as they did in 2018, when they prevented medical attention for dozens of seriously injured people.
“It seems that we are returning to the lethal phase of repression, when the police would also kidnap the wounded or simply not give them medical attention and they died or became disabled,” said the Calidh director.
Ramírez-Ayerdiz also joined in demanding that the dictatorship be held accountable for the whereabouts and health of Eddie González, and reminded dictators Ortega and Murillo that with actions such as those committed against the former military man from Estelí “they continue to commit crimes against humanity.”
