The daughter of the indigenous politician and representative Brooklyn Rivera, Tininiska Rivera, denounced the independent media Nicaragua Investigates that the officials of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime have told him on three occasions that his father has died and do not give him any further information.
Since he was arrested in September 2023, the deputy’s relatives have not seen him and have even “searched for him in several hospitals” in an attempt to find out his whereabouts and current state of health. “I think that these fake news are from the government itself to worry the family and the population in general,” lamented the daughter of the political leader.
Related news: OHCHR urges the Ortega regime to release Brooklyn Rivera, after missing for four months
Rivera affirmed that the public institutions of Bilwi, in Puerto Cabezas, Caribbean Coast, are the ones that notified him about the alleged death of the indigenous politician. Another rumor he has heard is that “he is sick and they have him in a hospital.”
«This is information that as a family we never corroborate. We have not seen him, we do not know anything about him, we do not even know which police station he is in, if they have him in El Chipote or La Modelo. “We don’t know anything, we don’t have any information,” he denounced.
Rivera indicated that the only thing he has been told about his father’s case is that it is “in the hands of the Presidency” and that “we should not continue asking because whoever does will go to prison.”
«To be suddenly told that your dad is dead is incredible. The first time was too shocking for me. “I was crying for a week, I didn’t know what to do and there was no way to investigate that news,” said the Nicaraguan.
The young woman, forced to leave the country for security reasons, pointed out that the Ortega authorities have distanced her from her father in “every aspect.” «We don’t even know where she is. “They have prevented us from delivering medicines, food and giving him a lawyer,” she added.
Rivera specified that although “two appeals for habeas corpus have been made,” both were “rejected” by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
Kidnapped by the Minsa
In May of last year, the regime denied Brooklyn Rivera entry into the country after participating in a forum on indigenous communities at the United Nations headquarters in New York, United States. However, since then the Sandinista dictatorship followed in his footsteps.
Brooklyn Rivera was not kidnapped by the police, paramilitaries or any other group of uniformed men with weapons. On September 29, alleged brigade members from the Ministry of Health (Minsa) arrived at the political leader’s house to “supervise the area for malaria outbreaks.” That was when they arrested him and took him in an ambulance from Bilwi to Managua, according to the complaints of the other indigenous leaders.
Related news: IACHR grants precautionary measures to Brooklyn Rivera and Nancy Henríquez, kidnapped by the Ortega dictatorship
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures for Rivera and Nancy Henríquez, a Yatama leader also kidnapped through deception by the Ortega Police. The humanitarian organization considered that both indigenous leaders “are in a serious and urgent situation of risk of irreparable damage to their rights in Nicaragua.”
The organization reports that they have carried out various actions to find out the situation of the political prisoner, but the Managua regime has not responded to their communications about the measures adopted to protect the rights of the beneficiary of precautionary measures.
