The daughters of the general manager of the newspaper La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, a political prisoner of the Government of Daniel Ortega, asked the authorities to allow them to speak by phone with their father, imprisoned since August 2021, and who they said “has been much lack”.
“For more than 500 days I have not had any contact with my father, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, detained in El Chipote. We have not been allowed a single call or send or receive letters, ”said the young Renata Holmann through a video that she shared with her sister, Camila, on her social networks.
“At this time of year (Christmas and New Year’s Eve) the whole family usually gathers together and we have felt a lot of emptiness and the absence of my father. That is why we ask that our right to have a call with him be respected ”, advocated, on his side, Camila Holmann.
We demand that our right to a call with our dad be respected. More than 500 days of isolation is too long, we need an urgent call. #OneCallNow pic.twitter.com/uGYhxER2nj
— Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro (@JuanLHolmannCh) December 28, 2022
“We miss you a lot,” added Camila, who with her sister recorded the video in front of a Christmas tree.
“We hope that soon we will be able to hear your voice again”, concluded Renata Holmann.
Sentenced to nine years in prison
Last March, the general manager of the newspaper La Prensa was sentenced to nine years in prison and to pay a financial fine for the crime of money laundering, goods or assets, by the Sandinista judge Nadia Camila Tardencilla Rodríguez, head of the Second District Court Managua Prison.
Holmann Chamorro, who is also regional vice president of the Inter-American Press Association (SIP), has enjoyed, since last September 29, together with his family, precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which considers that Their situation is “serious and urgent, with the risk of irreparable damage to their rights.”
The general manager of La Prensa has been in prison since August 14, 2021 and the ruling of the Second Criminal District Court of Managua also disqualified him from exercising his profession, trade or position, while the sentence lasts.
One day before his arrest, the National Police, led by Francisco Díaz, Ortega’s in-law, forcibly occupied the facilities of La Prensa, which were later confiscated.
Holmann Chamorro is part of a group of more than 40 Nicaraguans, including opposition leaders, critics of President Ortega, and independent professionals, who were imprisoned before the November 2021 elections, in which Ortega, without political competence, was re-elected to his fifth term, fourth in a row and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with seven of the applicants in prison.
The businessman became the fourth member of the Chamorro family to be convicted by the Nicaraguan justice system, which before did the same with the brothers Cristiana and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios, children of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), and also directors of La Prensa, as well as Juan Sebastián Chamorro García.
Both Cristiana and Juan Sebastián were arrested after announcing their interest in running for the Presidency from the opposition.
Ortega has branded the imprisoned and tried opponents as “traitors to the homeland”, “criminals” and “sons of bitches of the Yankee imperialists”.
