The Union of Nicaraguan Political Prisoners and Prisoners (UPPN) denounced the “torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” that the political prisoners of the Waswalí Regional Penitentiary System, Matagalpa, are suffering; who on April 25 began an “indefinite” hunger strike to expose the abuses they suffer inside the prison.
The lawyer and political prisoner Manuel Urbina Lara joined the hunger strike along with other prisoners of the Penitentiary System. Through an audio, Lara reported that the decision is “due to cruel and inhuman treatment by higher authorities.”
Related news: Human rights defenders fear that political prisoners “will die in jail”
“We denounce the cruel treatment in the Waswalí prison system where several political prisoner brothers, such as Moisés Leiva Chavarría and José Alcides Zeledón, suffer total isolation and constant torture as a method of coercion and dehumanization; while other political prisoners carry out a hunger strike demanding the cessation of these tortures; which are the main weapon of the dictatorship used in the different detention centers”, refers the UPPN through a statement.
The UPPN states that there are currently more than “200 complaints of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of political prisoners and their families.” In Nicaragua, there are more than 180 political prisoners, of which 14 are women, 44 are people who have been recaptured or detained for the second time.
Urbina Lara maintained that in the Penitentiary System “the flow of drinking water is limited, there are days that they give us half a gallon, they reduce our food, they have denied us recreation, sun, they have denied us everything (…) the more it flares up, let’s go to continue denouncing all the abuse that this regime is committing against all political prisoners.”
Related news: Ortega regime “beheads” CPDH and 24 other NGOs
In turn, the organization regrets that the regime has decided to cancel the legal status of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) with 74 votes in favor, zero against, 15 abstentions and one present. This defense organization was the only one left in that area working legally.
Before this action by the dictatorship, the CPDH board of directors denounced on February 28, that at that time the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) refused to receive the annual financial report that it is obliged to comply with as an institution.
