Daniel Ortega’s regime denied entry to Nicaragua to the Guatemalan journalist, anthropologist and writer, Irma Velásquez Nimatuj, who arrived in the country for academic reasons, but was sent back to her nation.
Velásquez Nimatuj, who is part of the Editorial Board of Plaza Pública, was detained at the Augusto C. Sandino international airport in Managua on the night of Sunday, July 24, and was later sent back to her country, according to Guatemalan media reports.
The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry confirmed to Prensa Libre that, around eight o’clock on Sunday night, it had requested information from the Nicaraguan government about the journalist’s detention, but no further details were known.
Hours later, Plaza Pública denounced that the Nicaraguan authorities stripped Velásquez Nimatuj of his belongings and “did not clarify the reason for his arrest.”
?#Urgent | Anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez was arrested in Nicaragua. They stripped her of her belongings and did not clarify the reason for her arrest. She is part of the Editorial Board of Plaza Pública. pic.twitter.com/CrGvJ233ol
– Public Square (@PlazaPublicaGT) July 25, 2022
The Ortega regime has also denied entry to the country to journalists, investigators, human rights activists and politicians of different nationalities who are against the systematic violation of the human rights of Nicaraguans.
Refusal of international scrutiny
Last November, the Ortega regime blocked the entry of the foreign press to cover the elections on Sunday, November 7. About a dozen reporters and photojournalists from different international media tried to enter the country, but the immigration authorities did not allow it.
Among the reporters who have been rejected by the regime are: Nicaraguan journalist from Univisión, Tifani Roberts; the correspondent in Mexico of the French newspaper Le Monde (The World), Frédéric Saliba; and a team from the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo, who made their complaint anonymously.
Recently, the regime denied entry to the country to a group of left wing parliamentarians from different Latin American countries, who had the intention of verifying the conditions in which people deprived of liberty for political reasons in Nicaragua find themselves.
The parliamentarians denounced that Ortega mounted a huge police and military deployment at the Peñas Blancas border post, through which they intended to enter the country.
About Irma Velazquez Nimatuj
Originally from Quetzaltenango, she is a journalist, anthropologist and human rights activist. She graduated as a teacher at the secondary level and later with a degree in Communication Sciences, from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala.
She was the first indigenous person to win a Fulbright scholarship in 1997, and three years later she obtained a master’s degree in Social Anthropology, five years later she received a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, United States.
She is the author of the books: Indigenous peoples, state and struggle for land in Guatemala: Strategies for survival and negotiation in the face of globalized inequality (AVANCSO 2008) and The commercial indigenous petty bourgeoisie of Guatemala: Inequalities of class, race and gender (SERJUS and AVANCSO, 2002). She has also been recognized for her work in support of indigenous peoples, and her defense of Human Rights.
Human rights activists and journalists from Guatemala criticized his unjustified retention by the Daniel Ortega regime.
Our repudiation of the illegal detention of Dr. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj by the Nicaraguan government. We demand the protection of @MinexGt to the compatriot and we call on the international community to reproach this action by the Ortega Murillo regime.
— Mutual Support Group (@apoyomutuo) July 25, 2022
