On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the April Rebellion, the Daniel Ortega regime unleashed a new hunt against citizens and dissidents in Nicaragua. This April 12, the National Police carried out two raids in Masaya looking for alleged “organizers” of commemorative activities for the fourth anniversary of the civic struggle that broke out in April 2018.
The home of María Andrea José, mother of Darwin Potosme -assassinated by the Ortega repression in June 2018- and member of the Mothers of April Association (AMA), was raided and surrounded by more than a dozen police officers.
“We asked for the search warrant and they didn’t have it. They told us to let them in, that if it wasn’t going to be worse for us,” denounced one of María Andrea’s relatives in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL.
The group of police officers, aboard five patrol cars and seven motorcycles, arrived at María Andrea José’s home around 9:00 am, claiming that they were looking for “political propaganda.”
“They told us: `we are going to check the house because we received a complaint. You have political propaganda here. They are organizing a mass in the Saint Michael Church‘”, he recounted.
He explained that as a family they were told to check “everything they want, because we have nothing.” The policemen for more than an hour “returned everything” inside the house, they even checked the cell phones of two of the seven people who were in the place.
“He made some calls and said: ‘there is nothing here,’ and they left,” said the relative.
He denounced that, before leaving, the agents photographed everyone who was in the house, including a minor, and threatened them by telling them that if they looked at them at the mass, which is supposedly being organized in the San Miguel Arcángel Church, They “picked them up and took them prisoners, where the other tranqueros are.”
Mother of victim Darwin Potosme affected by break-in
María Andrea José, 64, fainted when the police carried out a search of her home. According to her relatives, the woman was affected by the fear she has that “another of her children will be taken away from her.”
“They have taken everything from us, even a family member, and they won’t leave us in peace. This raid reminded us of the moment we learned of Darwin’s murder, when several of our relatives lost their balance when they heard the news,” said a relative of María Andrea.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) denounced the “police abuse” against the Potosme family and reminded “the regime that it is the right of Nicaraguans to commemorate their dead relatives.”
In addition, he demanded the “cessation of repression and respect for the physical and psychological integrity” of the relatives of the victims. victims murdered in the context of social protests, which began in April 2018.
Police raid in search of “ballots”
The home of Yolanda González, persecuted in Masaya after participating in the 2018 protests, was also raided this Tuesday by more than a dozen police officers, who were “looking for ballots” that were supposed to be “used in a mass in the Church Saint Michael the Archangel of Masaya”.
ANDhe search began at around 8:30 am and ended at 10:00 am In those more than two hours, the Police reviewed and turned everything inside the house, but did not find the alleged ballots.
? We condemn the arbitrary police raid at the house of oppositionist Yolanda González, at least 15 police officers arrived at her property at 8:30 am and entered with violence, without caring about the presence of 4 children who were crying with nervousness and fear. pic.twitter.com/NxxBEW7ihH
— Cenidh (@cenidh) April 12, 2022
In the last four years González has had three break-ins. The first occurred in October 2020, when she was related to the alleged illegal carrying of weapons, after the arrest of former Sandinista councilor Benjamín Gutiérrez Collado. Three months later, on January 15, 2021, the house was raided again and she was held for four hours by the Masaya Police, accused again of allegedly carrying weapons illegally.
In this third raid, the Police did not present a court order and did not take any property from the house, as happened in the previous raids, in which they stole money and belongings from the property. However, they threatened a new imprisonment and criminalization against Gutiérrez, in case she attends the mass that is supposedly being convened in the San Miguel Arcángel Church.
