Reporting Daily to Police Deters 100s of Nicaraguans’ Lives
Hundreds of Nicaraguans live under constant watch, ordered to report daily to their local police stations, send photos proving their whereabouts, and ask permission every time they leave their homes.
HAVANA TIMES – “Maribel” felt anxiety flooding her when she saw the police patrol cars pull up at her home. It was 6 pm on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. Without explanation, they ordered her to open the door and began to “turn everything upside down,” searching high and low. They opened drawers, rifled through the clothing, moved the furniture around, and seized all the electronic devices they found.
“They didn’t hand me any kind of search warrant, nor did they tell me what they were looking for,” she states. When the police had finished searching her home, Maribel thought they were going to take her to jail for having participated in the 2018 civic protests against the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Instead, they took her to a court in Managua, where she joined other patrols carrying people who’d been detained in different parts of Nicaragua.
After several hours in the Courthouse, Maribel’s fear began to grow. Finally, they brought her to a hearings chamber, where a judge accused her of four crimes: “spreading fake news, undermining the national sovereignty, organized crime, and terrorism.” To her surprise, they then assigned her “conditional liberty,” a term the dictatorship uses for a system of “de facto house arrest.” Those so assigned are allowed to stay in their own homes, with the stipulation that they sign in every day at their city’s main police station.
The crime of this woman from northern Nicaragua was to have participated in the protests of the April [2018] Rebellion. “I’d already stopped protesting, because you can’t in the country, but I continued sharing posts against the dictatorship on social media. I stopped doing that too, when they imprisoned Monsignor [Rolando] Alvarez,” she explains.
Hundreds under this system of de facto house arrest
In a police operation that lasted 12 hours, according to stories of affected citizens that Confidencial was able to compile, some 190 people from 13 of Nicaragua’s departments were put through this system and ordered to sign in daily at their police stations.
In general, the procedure for signing in is similar in all the police delegations – those on “conditional liberty” sign a Book of Records, have their picture taken, and leave.
On May 13, 2023, another police raid was carried out during the night, adding another 80 citizens to the list of those under de facto house arrest, all with the same obligation to sign in daily at their city’s police station.
Similar operations were documented in April 2024 in the North and South Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast; and again in July 2024, in the Pacific departments of Managua, Masaya, Carazo, and Leon. On these occasions, those detained weren’t even put before a judge. Instead, it was simply the Police that imposed the order to sign in daily.
As of the present, there’s an undercount of Nicaraguans being subjected to the system of de facto house arrest implied by an order to report daily, without having been formally accused or tried. Organizations that monitor the situation in the departments outside the capital estimate that there are currently between 200 and 260 Nicaraguans ordered to sign in daily at the police stations in different parts of Nicaragua.
This is effectively a new repressive measure in a country that, since 2018, has been living under a police state. The citizens it affects must not only report to the police daily, but they must also send photos when ordered to; ask permission to leave their homes, municipalities, or departments; and remain under surveillance by plain-clothes police or Ortega sympathizers.
Told they’re “under investigation”
In these recent operations, the obligation to report daily to the National Police began with visits from officers who identified themselves as members of police intelligence. Then, the citizens were notified that they are “under investigation” and that, for the duration of the inquiry, they must report daily to the nearest police station.
In the electronic system of the Judicial Power, the accusation against Maribel and all those arrested in the first raid was available for a few days but later disappeared. “Many continue to sign in, even though there is no accusation, and the vast majority fled the country,” the citizen reports.
The judge’s order for Maribel indicated that she had to appear at ten in the morning, but when she arrived the next day at the station, they told her she had to do so at six in the morning. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday, if it’s raining, if it’s the weekend, or if you’re sick,” she points out.
In February 2024, they also informed her that if she wanted to leave her apartment, she had to give three days’ notice. “I did it for medical reasons, but it’s difficult to notify them every time you want to move,” she says.
The first time Maribel left her apartment, the police never responded to her, even when she arrived to sign in at the station on the same day as her medical appointment. “I took a risk and left because it takes three months to reschedule those appointments,” she says.
Although she knows many people have left, in her case, she is afraid to leave her family behind. “I have someone sick, who depends on me, and in another country, I don’t know if they will be able to receive care,” she laments.
One day, when she couldn’t go to the station because she was in the hospital, she says the police came there to take pictures of her and have her sign. “I could see in their faces that they felt compassion for me,” she explains.
“We’re political prisoners, but we don’t count”
The same day and hour that Maribel was detained, “Rodolfo” – yet another citizen who had actively participated in the 2018 protests against the regime – was being taken to Managua from the southern part of the country. He received the same orders.
He describes his current situation as “exhausting,” because he’s constantly under threat that if he fails to come in and sign, they’ll take him to the feared El Chipote jail.
“I know people who’ve been hospitalized, and they come right there to make them sign; also some who couldn’t come one day, so the Police came to look for them and warn them that the next time they’d be prisoners,” he notes.
Rodolfo lives relatively near the police station in his city, but he knows people who have to travel up to 22 kilometers [13.7 miles] every day. “It’s physically, emotionally and economically wearing (…) many can’t even work,” he insists.
According to Rodolfo, some in the “conditional liberty” group receive a police visit once a week. “They close off the street, send the whole family out onto the sidewalk, and begin taking photos of the person and the dwelling.”
In his case, he says, he’s received police visits on “special occasions” – a few days before the anniversary of the protests; Christmas time; the Independence Day holidays; and even before the celebration of the 1979 Sandinista victory.
On those visits, “They repeat the same question: ‘What plans do these bastards have?’” he says. To Rodolfo, that very question lays bare the dictators’ fear of protests.
He calls this experience of house arrest, that at least 260 Nicaraguans are currently enduring, a “silent torture.”
“We’re political prisoners, but we don’t count. No one mentions us, we’re not on any list of the dictatorship’s victims,” he laments.
The largest police round-ups
May 3, 2023: Some 190 people from 13 departments in Nicaragua were detained during the night. The measure of a daily sign-in at the police station was imposed on all of them.
May 13, 2023: In another police raid carried out at night, 80 citizens were rounded up and put under “conditional liberty.” Some must sign daily, while others are ordered to report and sign in at the nearest police station every 15 days.
April 2024: In the context of the regional elections on the Caribbean Coast, police conducted another massive raid and imposed conditional liberty on an undetermined number of people.
July 2024: A police operation is carried out in Managua, Masaya, Carazo, and Leon, forcing more people to undergo the daily sign-in procedure. The exact number is unknown.
De facto house arrest involves “less political cost”
Ivania Alvarez, from the Urnas Abiertas [“Open ballot boxes”] citizens initiative, believes that this form of police repression is made possible thanks to the “block by block” surveillance implemented in the last few years in Nicaragua. She maintains that the regime’s political secretaries and operators in the neighborhood are charged with filtering information to the police.
In her view, the measure of obligating people to report and sign in has been “effective” for the regime, because when people feel more under watch, their participation in public activities lessens and their fear of being jailed at any time forces them to remain silent.
In addition, Alvarez notes that this repressive measure implies a “lesser political cost for the regime,” since it avoids having the list of political prisoners grow, and diminishes the outcry from the international community. Moreover, most of the people being forced to sign in eventually end up going into exile.
“They want to silence us and make us leave Nicaragua”
The image of her mother’s suffering when “Carmela” was detained remains etched in her mind. “We’ll bring her back tomorrow,” was the promise of the police agents who took all their telephones and left the family incommunicado.
When she saw she was being taken in an unknown direction, Carmela confesses that her blood pressure rose. That night seemed eternal to her. She recalls that she signed some papers, they took her fingerprints, and the police and prosecutors stared at her with hate. “They took us to a hearings chamber where there was a judge, some prosecutors, and some supposed defense lawyers who never even spoke with us. There were about eleven people, because we were sent there in groups,” she explains.
At about one in the morning, Carmela learned that they were letting her go home, with the “order to sign in every day” at the police station in her city, in the north of Nicaragua. “The supposed public defenders only said that they agree with the petition of the accusers,” she recalls.
She doesn’t know what the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship is seeking with these shadowy legal processes such as “conditional liberty.” “There’s no accusation, but the threat is present. Apparently, they don’t want more people in the jails as political prisoners, or at least they want to present the image of not having so many people,” Carmela reflects.
She went to sign in for the first time on May 4, 2023. That same morning, she began packing her suitcases to leave Nicaragua. “I didn’t want to see my mother suffer, knowing that at any moment they could imprison me,” she states.
She believes that the dictatorship itself is looking for a way to have all these people leave the country. “What interests the dictatorship is that there’s no one left, because they live in fear of a civic uprising,” Carmela affirms.
In addition to herself, she knows a young guy who was captured in the second night raid of dissenters on May 13, 2023. He was assigned to sign in at the police station every 15 days, but he also left the country. “A policeman himself suggested he leave Nicaragua,” comments Carmela.
An “arbitrary” and “illegal” measure
The system of de facto house arrest by the National Police is an “arbitrary” and “illegal” measure, since the National Police aren’t authorized to dictate precautionary measures, asserts Attorney Alexandra Salazar of the Unidad de Defensa Juridica [“Legal Defense Unit”]. In all cases, she adds, it’s the role of the Judicial Branch to determine if those under “investigation” need to report to some authority.
Salazar also questions the fact that this measure is imposed “for an indefinite time,” which lays bare its “arbitrary” and “repressive” character.
“There are people who have been going to sign in daily with the Police for more than a year. That exceeds any legal period of investigation. Criminal investigation procedures officially last for three months, or six at most, when it’s a complex case,” the attorney stresses.
With this measure, the police are imposing “an absolute control over the lives of those considered dissenters,” points out Attorney Salvador Marenco of the Nicaragua Nunca Mas Human Rights Collective.
“These people suffer serious limitations on their movements, because they have to ask permission to leave. Their right to work is affected, because they’re not allowed to work in a normal way. They suffer effects in their families; they’re affected in many other spheres of their lives, including the right to health,” highlights the human rights defender.
“Our lives revolved around the obligation to go and sign”
During the period when “Natalia” was signing in at a police station, she couldn’t sleep. At night, she was attacked by an anxious foreboding that her alarm might fail go off, and after seven am – the hour when she had to report every day – a police patrol would arrive to arrest her. She’d leave her clothes out on the bureau in her room, so she could dress quickly at dawn, and she tried to arrive at her daily appointment an hour early.
Her family couldn’t sleep either, or even eat in peace. Her father, an elder gentleman with chronic ailments, couldn’t sleep a wink, dreading the hour that a patrol car would come for Natalia. Her mother, also an older adult, cooked every day and it pained her to see that no one in the house was eating more than one meal a day.
Being under watch, “takes away your appetite, it gives you insomnia, you don’t feel like going out, you don’t want to do anything,” Natialia comments. “You’re in a constant state of alert, maybe out of fear or depression,” she adds.
For fifteen days Natalia went to sign in at the police station. Then, she left Nicaragua. During that time, her life “practically centered around the visit to the police station.”
Her suffering had begun in July, 2024, when two plain-clothes officials arrived at her house to confirm her address and ask questions. That first “interrogation” lasted nearly three hours. The questions of the police “are aimed at incriminating you of whatever they have in their script,” she assures.
“They tell you that the information you’re giving them is enough to send you to jail, so it’s better that you collaborate. Then they ask for your phone and review your conversations with relatives, friends, work, everything. They don’t like you to have conversations with people who are no longer living in the country,” Natalia remarks.
Hours after that first interrogation, the officers returned to her house. “You’re under investigation,” they informed her, and made her sign a notebook where she committed to report daily to a police station.
The first day Natalia came to sign in, “was super quick” – it didn’t take more than 5 minutes. The officer in charge even told her “not to worry, that the signature was a normal thing and that I could go about my life normally.”
The next day, though, the officers began to ask her about her relatives that live in another city. Hours after she’d signed in, twelve police patrol cars arrived at her home with a search warrant. “They went through the whole house and took all our computers and cell phones,” she details.
“We asked an officer why they were doing all this, and he told us two things: that we were under investigation for crimes of spreading false news, and because some neighbors had denounced that we were sharing social media posts against the government,” recalls Natalia. Shortly afterwards, fearing that they might imprison her at any moment, she chose to leave Nicaragua.
“They want us to be thankful we’re not in jail”
Even though the measure of signing in with the police every day meant he could sleep in his own bed and eat at home, “Guillermo” says his life changed after his violent abduction.
“They arrived and broke the door down; they put us all on the floor and ransacked the whole house. There were some 80 police involved,” he states.
Guillermo was sent in front of a judge, who accused him of “disturbing the peace.” In his perception, the judicial authority was simply repeating the words of Rosario Murillo. When the judge told him he was allowed to go free on the condition that he report daily to the police, he felt a bit relieved.
“Be thankful you’re being set free, don’t waste this opportunity (…) and don’t ever again do anything against the government,” the judge told all the detainees that filled the chamber.
As Guillermo left, he saw that other detainees were still arriving and filing into the different courtrooms. He signed some 20 pages and remained silent as the police brought him back to his house in a Managua neighborhood.
On the way, a police agent told him solemnly: “You should be clear about what just happened here. Cool your engines, quit pissing around posting messages on social media, and be thankful that we’re taking you back home.”
The next day he went to the police station to sign, but there they didn’t even know who he was, nor did they seem to be aware of the police raid. “I left the police station for a courthouse, but they didn’t know anything either, so I went back home, thinking that they [the police] would be coming,” he recalls.
Guillermo then went to church to pray. Indeed, that same afternoon, they came to look for him again. “Since I wasn’t there, they told my sister that I should report to the station at eight the next morning,” he continues.
Intimidation and spying
Although he was “free” it didn’t take Guillermo long to realize that he was under watch. “Sometimes I’d go to the market and encounter intelligence agents following me, the same ones I met the day of the police operation. Other times, I’d run into a woman who had been asking directions on the streets of my neighborhood days before my detention,” he adds.
For two months, Guillermo reported punctually to the police station he was assigned to, but in July 2023, he left the country. He first went to El Salvador, then traveled to the United States where he now works in construction.
Even though he’s no longer in Nicaragua, he remains silent, “out of fear for my family who are still there.”
He admits it was a policeman who motivated him to make the decision to leave. “You,” the official suggested, “keep your mouth shut and you’re better off getting out.”
Note: The names of all those who shared their stories have been changed to protect them and their families from further retaliation from the dictatorship.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.