From the social uprising of April 2018 to February 2023, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has taken a total of 1,310 political prisoners, according to the most recent report from the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, an organization that documents the captures of the Nicaraguan regime.
The current list of political prisoners totals 37 people, opponents and hostages of conscience who were not exiled to the United States on February 9. Of that total, one was arrested after the release and expatriation of 222 political prisoners; and two in February 2022, but added until this update. Of the 1,310 inmates, 74 of them have suffered two or more terms in jail.
According to the Mechanism, the political prisoners were “detained for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or demonstration and have been victims of a series of violations of their human rights during their imprisonment, as well as violations of the basic guarantees of respect for due process”.
Related news: Another mother killed in the April protests dies without seeing justice for her son
“This number of 1,310 contains an underreporting due to the lack of information, repression, and dismantling of civil society that Nicaragua is facing, therefore not all the detainees have been included by the Mechanism,” the report from the independent organization highlights.
The report explains that the highest peaks in detention occurred at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 when the lists of political prisoners reached 808 people in jail.
“It should be noted that since July 2019 the number of political prisoners did not exceed 200 people, a scenario that was repeated as of August 2022,” he says.
In its compilation, the Mechanism has identified that since the beginning of the sociopolitical crisis the regime has released another 520 political prisoners unilaterally and unofficially. “Two political prisoners have died under state protection without having seen their freedom,” he highlights.
