Although he was imprisoned for seven months in the La Modelo prison, the university leader, Levis Artola Rugama, now under house arrest, did not lose his sense of humor nor the charm that characterize him. Neither did he lose the rebelliousness that motivated him to get involved in the protests against the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

In Managua, Matagalpa, Leon, and different cities around the country, the civic protest has counted on a strong women’s participation. Among them, the feminists stand out. For more than ten years, they have maintained a position critical of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

Former magistrate Rafael Solis, previously one of Comandante Daniel Ortega’s principal political operators within the Judiciary, was surprised by Foreign Minister Denis Moncada’s declarations regarding the government’s refusal to discuss early elections at the dialogue being held at the INCAE business school in Managua.

On her knees in a preventive holding cell at the infamous El Chipote interrogation jail, Yolanda Sanchez Moraga thought about her twelve-year-old daughter, while a guard threatened to cut off her hands and to give her over to some policemen to be raped. She cried with fear and in vain implored them to leave her in peace.

The political prisoner Kenia Maria Gutierrez Gomez, 36, only had to obey a few guards to obtain the release to house arrest offered by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. However, this Chinandega woman refused and chose to remain imprisoned in the La Esperanza women’s prison in Tipitapa.

The Nicaraguan “civic insurrection” has spawned hundreds of political prisoners and this is the welcome message they get when entering prison: “They told us that if Nicaraguans rise up civically again, they will kill all of us without even thinking about it.”