In the first nine days of April, within the framework of the fifth anniversary of the Civic Revolution of 2018, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has arrested some 21 people throughout the country, according to records from the Blue and White Monitoring (MAB). released by the Blue and White National Unity (Unab).
The young Jasson Salazar, vice president of the April 19 University Movement; Olesia Muñoz, opposition member and Catholic soprano singer; Victor Tikay, a journalist from Channel 10, among other people, are part of the group of detainees this April.
In that same period, 71 incidents related to human rights violations were reported in Carazo, Chontales, Granada, Jinotega, León, Madriz, Managua, Masaya, Matagalpa, Río San Juan, Rivas and in the South Caribbean.
«The MAB registers an increase in human rights violations during Holy Week in Nicaragua. Most of the incidents have been against opposition members, members of the Catholic Church and its parishioners, journalists and territorial activists,” the organization denounced on its Twitter account.
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The opposition member Héctor Mairena, a member of the Unab Political Council, told Article 66 that these actions of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship is a “hunt” against Nicaraguans that has been carried out in various departments of the country.
“More than 20 people kidnapped by the Ortega Police are reported. They are people who have been linked to religious activities that were prevented or repressed by the Police. The Police kept a permanent watch on the religious temples, preventing them from carrying out these religious manifestations, an act that once again demonstrates that the dictatorship maintains a religious persecution”, he affirmed.
«This repressive escalation occurs in the week prior to commemorating the fifth anniversary of the April Citizen Rebellion. This confirms that the Ortega Murillo dictatorship is maintained on the basis of repression, lives to repress, but at the same time reveals a deep fear on the part of the dictatorship that the population will demonstrate in the streets and that is what it is demonstrating. with this repressive escalation,” he added.
The detainees
Among those detained is Juan Centeno Espinoza. He was kidnapped by the Police in the El Jocote community, in the department of Somoto, on the afternoon of April 6. His relatives reported that they do not know his whereabouts.
Olesia Muñoz, released from political prison, was required by the Police to undergo an interview on April 6, 2023. When she did not return from the police station, her relatives went to ask about her whereabouts without receiving an answer. She remains in prison.
Jasson Salazar was arrested at his home on Tuesday, April 4, by the dictatorship’s Police. The regime deployed a strong device of about 20 police officers to apprehend the youth leader.
Journalist Victor Tikay was arrested on Holy Thursday, April 6, after covering a religious procession in the municipality of Nandaime, department of Granada. The reporter reported on the development of the activities of the Catholic Church in that municipality.
Unofficial sources have revealed that the journalist remains in prison in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ), known as “El Chipote”, a place where political prisoners are tortured, according to complaints from local and international organizations. The communicator would be accused of propagating false news under Law 1042, the Special Cybercrime Law, for carrying out his work as a journalist for Channel 10 television.
