National and international feminist organizations, in coordination with the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), launched a virtual campaign so that political prisoners who are imprisoned in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance (DAJ) can see and communicate with their sons and daughters regularly every 15 days.
The initiative takes as an example the case of the political prisoner and leader of the Blue and White National Unity (Unab), Tamara Dávila, who lives a forced separation with her six-year-old daughter, an action ordered by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo .
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The hostage of conscience spent more than 14 months without having any kind of contact with her little girl since she was arrested in her home on June 12, 2021. She was charged and sentenced to eight years in prison for the alleged crime of “conspiracy to undermining of national integrity” and “treason against the fatherland”.
Political prisoners Miguel Mora, Miguel Mendoza, Suyen Barahona, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Róger Reyes also experience this same situation. All of them have been denied the right to communicate by any means with their offspring.
“All prisoners and political prisoners have the right to see their relatives. This regime has systematically violated that right that is established in Nicaraguan legislation and this is especially serious in the case of children and disabled people. The penalties that are unfair should not be extended to the family, boys and girls cannot be punished by punishing the father or the mother”, said the opposition Ana Quirós, member of the Political Council of the Unab.
Quirós explained that, for a five-year-old girl, going without seeing her mother, her main reference for more than a year, is a very serious punishment. She said that it is practically 20% of her life that has been deprived of her mother. She demanded that the regime regularize visits to the relatives of political prisoners, and especially to children.
“Tamara Dávila has the right to see her daughter, Miguel Mendoza has the right to see her daughter, as well as all political prisoners. People who are abroad also have the right to communicate with them and should be able to talk on the phone, receive letters, photos and have daily communication », she stated.
A lawyer, on condition of anonymity, explained to Article 66 that visits between prisoners of conscience and their sons and daughters should be every 15 days because it is a right of children and adolescents who are protected in the Family Code. The jurist pointed out that the law establishes that fathers, mothers, sons and daughters must maintain communication and that this right is not extinguished because the parents are in prison.
The only mechanism that has been effective so that the political prisoners Tamara Dávila and Miguel Mora could see their children last Saturday, August 20, was a hunger strike. The regime relented and allowed both prisoners of conscience to meet them after 15 months under forced separation.
