At least 158 opponents of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have been victims of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of officials or followers of the regime, and the perpetrators of this “crime against humanity” must be “criminally punished” to save the moral strength of Nicaragua and bring justice to the victims, recommends a report by human rights defenders.
The Nicaragua Human Rights Collective Never Again presented the eighth report of the Nicaraguan Observatory Against Torture, in which it states that those 158 cases, which were committed by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, against political opponents, must obtain justice, punishing the perpetrators through criminal proceedings, as a way to save the moral strength of Nicaraguan society.
The report details that the future application of a judicialization initiative “can contribute to the process of facing the denial of torture in Nicaragua”, but warns that “criminal law should not be considered an instrument of pacification, nor a solution model to social and political conflict.
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In this sense, the document systematized by the Human Rights Collective, citing the sociologist Norbert Elías, recalls that “not punishing violations of the collective conscience undermines the strength of social morality and creates the risk of deteriorating the moral canons of citizens ».
In other words, the report insists, “not punishing enough can undermine the sovereignty and authority of the moral and legal order, as well as the authorities that support it.”
Tortures and perpetrators
The report details that, since the social protests broke out in 2018, at least 158 victims of torture have been registered, of which 130 are men, including 2 minors, and 28 women, to whom “40 methods of torture” were applied. torture”.
These methods include sexual violence against women and men, extreme and inhuman conditions of detention, beatings, death threats, even against relatives of opponents, temporary forced disappearance, burns, electric shocks, detachment of nails, and simulation of execution or murder. .
The report indicates as the main perpetrators of torture, identified based on the victim’s statements, the director of the Police, first commissioner and in-law of the dictatorial couple, Francisco Díaz, together with 9 other general commissioners: Fidel Domínguez, Luis Barrantes, Pedro Argueta, Luis Alberto Pérez, Adolfo Marenco, Juan Valle Valle, Vladimir Cerda Moraga and Ramón Avellán. All direct subordinates of Ortega and Murillo
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Mention is also made of the director general of the National Penitentiary System, prefect Julio Orozco and Sub-prefect Venancio Alanís, the latter involved in the murder, inside the prison, of the political prisoner Eddy Montes.
The State of Nicaragua has been a signatory to the Convention Against Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment since 2005, but the dictators Ortega and Murillo refuse to comply with the obligations that derive from it, on the contrary, on repeated occasions they have tried to delegitimize to the Committee Against Torture.
