The General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved the resolution on “The political and human rights crisis in Nicaragua”, which is based on nine points, among them, the cessation of repression against citizens and the full restoration of civic and political rights, the release of political prisoners and the guarantee of the right to religious freedom.
The organization shared its “deep concern” over the continued deterioration of the human rights situation in Nicaragua, referring to the multiple arbitrary arrests, imprisonment of political figures, the forced closure of civil society organizations and universities, the seizure of offices municipal authorities, the repression of journalists and raids on media organizations, and the intimidation of community leaders committed by the Ortega regime. “Which generates a climate of oppression and fear,” dictates the resolution.
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Chile’s Foreign Minister, Antonia Urrejola, was one of the voices raised for “more democracy” in the region, during her speech before the OAS member states.
The human rights defender, who followed up on the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua in 2018, pointed out that her government is “concerned about the reduction of democratic space in the region and the world” and declared her willingness to “build bridges.”
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Urrejola also led a meeting between 14 states of the hemisphere to address the crisis in Nicaraguain which the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, and the Undersecretary for the Americas of Canada, Michael Grant, participated.
But, among the governments that decided not to condemn the Nicaraguan dictatorship is that of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, close to Ortega.
The Deputy Foreign Minister Gerardo Torres justified his government’s position pointing out that “it is very complicated to get involved in an intervention process in a neighboring country” and revealed that “there is no answer” to the question if Honduras requests the release of political prisoners.
This Friday the second hearing was held for four priests, a deacon, two seminarians and a layman from the Diocese of Matagalpaclose to Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who are accused of the alleged crimes of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news.
The former employee of the Judiciary Yader Morazán revealed on his Twitter account that the hearing would take place in the morning to propose the evidence that will be presented in court.
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The recent report of Basel Index against Money Laundering places Nicaragua as the second worst country of Latin America and the Caribbean in the fight against this scourge.
The document details that the country obtained a rating of 6.70 on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the maximum risk.
Nicaragua was only surpassed by Haiti, which closed with a negative score of 8.16 points in the region.
Compared to the rest of the world, Nicaragua ranks nineteenth worst in terms of money laundering risk, only surpassed by Nigeria, Tonga, Zimbabwe and China.
