Nicaragua: Students to Resume Protests Despite Police State

By Ivette Munguia (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – Despite the Ortega regime’s police state and ban on any public protests since last September, a group of students asked the National Police for authorization to march on July 25, in the framework of the National Student Day, which is celebrated on July 23, with the objective of reaffirming the demand for university autonomy.

The request was submitted by the young people: Mildred Rayo, Wendy Juarez, Gelmin Martinez, Roberto Buschting, Augusto Centeno, Luisa Acosta, Aritz Serrano, Yerri Estrada and Omara Ruiz, who signed the petition as natural persons and are waiting for the resolution of the Police, an institution that maintains a de facto prohibition on any demonstrations against the dictatorship.

On September 29, 2018, the Police prohibited all demonstrations without prior authorization. Since then it has denied the right to protest to all organizations that have approached them to request permission to march and has privileged only the pro-government activities organized by Ortega’s Sandinista Front.

The organizers of the march intend to gather on Thursday, starting 2:00 p.m., at the Jean Paul Genie roundabout. From there, they will advance in a straight line to the Central American roundabout, where the mobilization will end.

Wendy Juarez, one of the organizers, explained that the objective of the mobilization is “to tell the people of Nicaragua that we are still here, we are still struggling, we have not given up,” said the student. When asked by journalists about the consequences of the mobilization, the young woman said: “we have assumed all the risks since April 18 (2018) when we left our homes, our universities.”

Juarez also stressed that the struggle against the ruling regime “belongs to everyone, not just to students” and acknowledged that before young people, mostly students, went out to protest in April 2018, “women and other sectors” had already been protesting.

Meanwhile, student Melida Zapata indicated that another reason to march on July 25, is that we students “reject the existing reality” in Nicaragua and “we struggle for a different reality…where the dictatorship and widespread corruption will be only in history books, because we are sure that our people are making history,” she asserted.

The police ban on protest, which remains in force, threatens to prosecute people and organizations that call for demonstrations that are declared “illegal.”

“The people that summon these illegal displacements from which they have promoted and are trying to promote, delinquent, destructive and criminal activities, will be held responsible and will brought to justice,” says a police press release.