The Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again pointed out that the “level of brutality and repression” perpetrated by the administration of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against citizens, civil society organizations and international entities, show that “we are in a terrible dictatorship in the hemisphere”.
In it sixth report The Torture Observatory registered, between December 2021 and March 2022, a total of 139 victims of torture, of which 116 are men and 22 women, including a transsexual woman.
Through the complaints, “continuous patterns of physical and mental torture have been identified, as well as mistreatment against political prisoners in detention centers and constant threats against their relatives for denouncing and demanding better conditions for those incarcerated” .
Related news: “Denying them shelter in their cells is torture,” denounce relatives of political prisoners in El Chipote
Wendy Flores, a human rights defender, indicated that the complaints filed with the organization are evidence that contributes to documenting that repression continues in Nicaragua and that the Ortega regime “does not give a truce and continues to carry out violent acts against the population. Nicaraguan”.
The report highlighted that as of January 31, the Public Ministry, controlled by the Ortega administration, resumed the political trials against prisoners of conscience, who remain captive in the facilities of the Evaristo Vásquez Police Complex, better known as the New chipotle.
He denounced that the Nicaraguan justice carried out the oral trials in an “arbitrary and illegal manner” by holding them in the prisons of Nuevo Chipote and “not in corresponding courts as established by the laws on the matter.”
“The initial and preliminary hearings have been held behind closed doors and without the conditions to exercise the right to an adequate defense, thus violating the rights and guarantees of due process and the fundamental rights of those deprived of liberty, in addition to qualifying them as “ criminals and delinquents”, and responsible for “the terrorist acts of aggression of the failed coup attempt” of the year 2018”, he stressed.
“Among the trials resumed in February and March 2022, are those of journalists Miguel Mora, Miguel Mendoza, Cristiana Chamorro, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, Juan Lorenzo Holmann and former workers of the dissolved Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, Walter Gómez, Marcos Fletes and Pedro Vásquez, all these people were sentenced to more than 8 years in prison, plus million-dollar fines,” he explained.
Ortega dictatorship threatens, harasses and persecutes defenders and journalists
The report against torture warned of “the situation of women deprived of liberty. The 14 opposition women have been arbitrarily detained, accused and sentenced, being subjected to unworthy and inhuman detention conditions, as well as sexual violence, acts of torture and ill-treatment in prisons.
He denounced that human rights defenders continue to be “victims of harassment, threats and attacks, as well as the lawyers of political prisoners, activists and defenders of indigenous peoples.”
It also indicated that independent journalism is “under permanent attack and siege by the Ortega government, its justice and parastatal operators who have been used to repress, harass, persecute, threaten, censor, attack, criminalize and prosecute who denounce serious violations of human rights.
Related news: Political prisoners are victims of increased torture, IACHR denounces
The Collective highlighted that among the different perpetrators identified by the victims are “the parastatal, police, military forces, the Judicial Power and the Public Ministry that have participated in the collusion to allow and perpetuate the repression in the country.”
“The justice system in Nicaragua lacks independence and is used with impunity to punish any critical person or opponent of the government who fails to comply with their duty to protect, thus disrupting the rule of law and democracy, becoming a key piece for repress people who defend human rights and demand justice for crimes against humanity, which occurred in the framework of the 2018 social protests,” he added.
The situation in Nicaragua gets worse every day
The defender Wendy Flores explained that they have managed between December 2021 and March 2022, around 44 requests for precautionary measures before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), due to the imminent situation of risk to their life and integrity of these people.
«Of these 44 requests that we have processed, the agency has granted us 27 precautionary measures; which means that the victims are being heard by organizations, but above all by the IACHR, a body of the Organization of American States, which was used to monitor, systematize and protect in case of human rights violations », he said.
“And we are facing a situation, in which the government has not only ignored the OAS, but has also failed to comply with the precautionary measures of this organization and with the provisional measures granted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which orders the immediate freedom of political prisoners. We have witnessed how one of them lost his life precisely because of this torture, in the case of Hugo Torres, however the situation does not change », he lamented.
On February 12, 2022, the political prisoner Hugo Torres died in one of the hospitals in Managua and at the hands of the Ortega dictatorship. After this event, “a devastating climate was generated for political prisoners, for their families and for those of us who have advocated for their life and immediate freedom.”
The Ortega administration, before the death of Torres, authorized the change of precautionary measure from prison to house arrest for five political prisoners, who are elderly adults and with health effects, among them are Edgar Parrales (79 years old) , Francisco Aguirre (77 years old), Mauricio Díaz (71 years old), José Pallais (68 years old) and Artuz Cruz (68 years old).
“The arbitrary treatment, torture and mistreatment that political prisoners have suffered demonstrate the inhumanity and cruelty of the Ortega government, which was even denounced on March 23 of this year, by Arturo McFields, Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, in a historic and unprecedented intervention, in which he demanded the freedom of political prisoners and denounced the Government as a dictatorship of which many officials are tired, “reads the document.
The sixth report against torture also highlighted that the Ortega regime continues with its policy of state repression. “In March 2022, the Nicaraguan government added 25 civil society organizations along with foundations and private universities to its repressive practice, canceling their legal status.”
“At least 160 non-profit organizations have been canceled since 2018, for allegedly failing to comply with the General Law on Non-Profit Persons and the Law Against Money Laundering, violating, among others, the right of association and political participation enshrined in the Political Constitution. and international treaties in Nicaragua”, he pointed out.
Wendy Flores stated that the victims’ complaints allow the human rights organization to show “the level of brutality and repression that exists in Nicaragua; It allows us to build memory, which has been one of the main objectives that we have set for ourselves within the Collective».
The Nicaragua Never Again Collective presented this sixth report against torture within the framework of its third anniversary, demanding “the end of state repression in Nicaragua, justice without impunity and reparations for all victims and their families.”
