For 47 days, the political prisoners detained in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ), known as El Chipote, have been totally incommunicado with their relatives. This is the third time Daniel Ortega’s regime subjects prisoners of conscience and their families to a period of more than 45 days without visits, which causes anguish and anxiety. This time the situation is aggravated by the hunger strike carried out by four political prisoners, who already presented signs of malnutrition.
The relatives of the political prisoners have demanded the scheduling of the visits in compliance with the provisions of Nicaraguan legislation, which determines meetings every eight, 15 and 21 days, but the regime has refused. In more than 15 months of confinement, the ten visits granted to relatives have been discretionally established in a period of 40 days, for that reason, the relatives expected to be summoned since last weekend, but it did not happen. Several ask the DAJ every time they drop off water, but they get no answers.
“We have no idea how they are,” especially after the passage of Hurricane Juliawarns Ana Lucía Álvarez, sister of Támara Dávila and niece of Ana Margarita Vijil; both political prisoners. She highlighted that water seeps into several cells at El Chipote, caused by excessive humidity.
“It has been a martyrdom. This situation of solitary confinement is part of the torture, of not knowing, of uncertainty as to when we are going to see them, how they are, how the hunger strike has been, how they are since that process. It is part of the arbitrariness and violations of the human rights of our relatives and ours as well, ”said Álvarez.
The relatives do not know the reasons why the regime has not allowed them to see the political prisoners. Some consider that it could be in retaliation for the hunger strike initiated by miguel mendoza and Róger Reyes, who demand to see their daughters, and Dora María Téllez and Irving Larios demanding an end to the system of torture.
Some relatives fear that the political prisoners are sick and that is why they are hiding them. There is no official information.
A relative of a political prisoner in El Chipote who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity considered that this long wait for visits may be related to the start of legal proceedings against the most recent prisoners of conscience, and perhaps for that reason they were delayed.
Nor did he rule out that it is a consequence of the confrontational speech that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have maintained against the international community and much more, after the resolution of the General Assembly of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) last Friday, October 7, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners.
Persist on hunger strike
Margin Pozo, Mendoza’s wife, commented that she has not slept due to the uncertainty and anxiety of not knowing anything about Miguel, who, being diabetic and undergoing a hunger strike, compromises his health. In addition, he is concerned about the health of his little Alejandra, who fell ill for the sixth time in less than three months and whose cause, according to specialists, refers to an emotional problem.
“It is the anxiety and anguish that family members go through every day. I go daily to leave water at 6:00 am and I don’t go to reception. For me it is very difficult to be a few blocks from where Miguel is and not be able to see him. That is psychological torture for me,” Pozo said.
The journalist also assured that the chronicler is a person of his word and will not give up the hunger strike until he is allowed to see his daughter. “They are depriving me of spending her best moments with her. That year that I am not going to be with her they are not going to replace it. It is a year that I will not be with my daughter in her life, ”Miguel told his wife before undergoing food deprivation.
Fernanda Guevara, wife of Reyes, has not been able to sleep either. She feels anxious not knowing anything about the also lawyer. The solitary confinement generates a lot of anguish and although Guevara is hopeful that this weekend they will be summoned for visits, she is also aware that the other possibility is that they will spend another 20 days without seeing them.
“The anguish accumulates from not knowing that your relative does not eat well, and that now he is not eating at all, all this has brought a lot of anguish,” said Guevara, who assured that Reyes was very convinced of his effort to see again to their daughters.
The relatives of the political prisoner Suyen Barahona have maintained the campaign called “a call for Suyen”, demanding they allow her to communicate with her little son, with whom she has not spoken for more than 15 months. César Dubois, Barahona’s husband, said that they are concerned because although the pattern of visits every 40 days was not fully met, it was an estimate that had been maintained in recent times.
“We do not know what are the reasons why the Government has not allowed the corresponding visits,” Dubois stressed.
“It hurts us to see this whole situation,” said Norma Vega, wife of political prisoner Pedro Vásquez. She has asked El Chipote several times about her visits, but they don’t tell her anything, so she fears that “something strange is happening.”
The 27 political prisoners who remain sentenced to between seven and thirteen years in prison, incommunicado and suffering torture in El Chipote were able to see their relatives about 95 days after they were captured, at the end of May and beginning of June, and later , the second longest wait for visits occurred in the first quarter of this year, after 55 days of capsizing and the most recent accumulated 47 days.
Daniel Ortega keeps more than 200 prisoners of conscience in prison in the different prisons of the country. Since September 26, a group of 20 political prisoners from La Modelo have also started an indefinite hunger strike, demanding “immediate and unconditional freedom” and, while that is happening, better prison conditions. This has provoked retaliation by the prison authorities, who have carried out abusive searches and have threatened them with transfers to maximum security cells, as confirmed. CONFIDENTIAL days ago.
