The former Sandinista guerrilla Mónica Baltodano, together with her husband, Julio López Campos, and her daughter Mónica López Baltodano, denounce the stripping of their citizenship by the Nicaraguan regime. The family affirms that despite this new onslaught “they are not going to silence us.”
They remember that in August 2021 they were “forced into exile after a relentless police siege on our homes whose objective was to kidnap us. Today, we are facing a pusillanimous dictatorial decree that seeks to take away our right to be Nicaraguans,” said a statement issued this Thursday, February 16.
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Baltodano and his family joined the long list of citizens who were forced to go into exile to preserve their freedom and integrity due to government repression, persecution, and harassment of opponents by the Ortega dictatorship since 2018.
In September 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures to Mónica López Baltodano and her relatives, because “the rights to life and personal integrity of the proposed beneficiary are at serious risk. The agency considered at that time that this risk situation extends to her family nucleus, who could also be affected.
Baltodano denounced that his family could be imprisoned for their role as opponents and for the incessant espionage actions, daily presence of police intelligence, harassment and political persecution of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
The Popol Nah Foundation was confiscated from the Baltodano family after its legal status was canceled along with another group of NGOs in December 2018. In the facilities of that organization, the regime ordered the Ministry of Health to install a maternity home.
“The mettle of each political prisoner, of each person who resists in silence, of those who organize to conquer freedom in Nicaragua, is the most valuable thing we have. We have been facing the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship for more than twenty years. They are not going to silence us, “concludes the letter.
The three are part of a group of 94 Nicaraguan citizens who were ordered by the regime to strip them of their nationality. In this new onslaught, the regime deprived journalists, human rights defenders, opponents, activists, feminists and Catholic priests of that right.
