The daughters of the political prisoners Miguel Mendoza and Félix Maradiaga will spend a Christmas without seeing their parents since, despite the requests of the relatives, the Daniel Ortega regime does not allow them to see each other, while maintaining the illegal detention of forty inmates politicians in the jail of the Directorate of Judicial Aid, in Managua, known as “the new Chipote.”
Margin Pozo and Bertha Valle, wives of Mendoza and Maradiaga, respectively, they talked about what the illegal imprisonment of their partners has meant for their daughters, who ask about them and wonder why they are not allowed to see them.
“She (Mendoza and Pozo’s daughter) likes to draw (…), she took two sheets and began to draw and it catches my attention because no one told her what she was going to do and neither what she was going to write (…) , and he began to draw a celestial heart and he had a little red broken heart at the same time and he told me that it meant a sad heart because his father is not here, “said Pozo, about a drawing that his daughter made, showing how much she misses her father, sports writer and blogger, imprisoned on June 21 this year.
At the end of May, the Daniel Ortega regime began a hunt against opponents, presidential candidates, journalists, human rights defenders and professionals who criticized the management of the Executive or worked in oenegés for the defense of public liberties.
More than 40 political prisoners have been incarcerated since then, and the regime added another 27 inmates in November, in addition to dozens who have been imprisoned for more than a year. Their relatives and the international community demand a Christmas without political prisoners, so that these 160 prisoners of conscience do not spend away from their families.
“A Christmas without them is extremely difficult”
The daughter of the presidential candidate Felix maradiaga Christmas will also pass without seeing his father and, according to Valle, with this will be two years that they will not be able to “hug” Maradiaga, since since May 2020 the regime decreed de facto immigration retention and he could not travel to the United States with his family, who left the country in the face of political persecution orchestrated by the regime after the social outbreak of 2018.
“I didn’t feel like putting up a tree, but precisely on the last visit, on November 15, Felix sent me to say that please celebrate Christmas and try to recreate ourselves, spend as a family and try to make an environment the most normal for Alejandra (her daughter) and that is what we have been doing, but it is extremely difficult, because it is inevitable not to think about our relatives, ”said Valle.
The last time the relatives of political prisoners managed to have contact with them was in November, but visits are limited to one or two hours, sometimes less, and also that children are not allowed. In addition, the relatives are subjected to a series of abusive reviews by the regime’s Police.
Impunity and helplessness in the situation of political prisoners
Dr. Vilma Núñez, director of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), which has managed precautionary measures for political prisoners, said that it is the same family members who are recording the suffering caused by the illegal imprisonment to which Daniel Ortega has subjected them and how this also affects the children of these political prisoners.
“When there is no response at the national level, when you do not have an independent Judicial Power, when you do not have a governmental human rights body, a Procurator in this case, which has been downgraded at the international level, due to its partiality, due to its lack of effectiveness. “We have no choice but to turn to international bodies,” said Núñez, who also, through the human rights organization canceled in 2018 by Ortega, has managed precautionary measures for the political prisoner Edgar Parrales, detained at the end of November.
The case of Parrales, a 79-year-old former Nicaraguan ambassador, is dramatic, as he suffers from various chronic conditions and, according to his relatives, the conditions in which he finds himself are worsening his health.
The relatives of political prisoners have denounced the inhumane conditions in which many find themselves. isolation, as in the case of Tamara Dávila, Dora María Téllez, Ana Margarita Vijil and Suyén Barahona, but those who have cellmates are also not allowed to talk to each other and are given a limited time, sometimes less than 10 minutes, to take sun, although infrequently.
Also, among the complaints, they report that political prisoners are subjected to constant interrogation as a form of psychological torture, and they limit the amount of food they are given and several have significantly lost weight.
Knowing those conditions, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner He demanded that the Nicaraguan regime release political prisoners and respect their human rights, which for Pozo is the same cry they have and they ask that conditions improve prior to their release.
“We want (the rights) of our relatives to be respected, we want them to be in better conditions, and to comply with everything that is requested in national and international human rights bodies. In this case, we ask that our family members always be free, but while that happens, that better conditions are also guaranteed, ”Pozo demanded.
Dr. Núñez appreciates that the world body tries to “keep its finger on the sore” by continuing to demand the release of political prisoners and that next March there will be a UN session in which the issue of Nicaragua will continue to be addressed.
