Ortega Regime Jails 27 More Nicaraguans in November

Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners confirmed that none of the political prisoners have been able to be visited and 13 of the 27 imprisoned have already been indicted

By Confidencial

HAVANA TIMES – The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has imprisoned 27 more Nicaraguans in the month of November, so far. They are being kept isolated and without access to visits from their families, reported the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners.

This mechanism, made up of more than 10 organizations of victims, relatives of victims and human rights defenders, told CONFIDENCIAL that from November 1-23 they registered the arrest of 48 people, 17 of whom have been released, while 21 men and 6 women are still imprisoned incommunicado.

They indicate that the 27 people who remain imprisoned are originally from: Río San Juan (11), Managua (5), Masaya (4), Estelí (3), Chinandega (2), Nueva Segovia (1) and Carazo (1).

In addition, they‘ve asserted that 17 of the 27 imprisoned belong to an organization or political party, and 10 of them are identified as activists, analysts, and released political prisoners.

The Mechanism indicates that nine of those arrested are in municipal jails, five in are in Managua, one person in El Chipote and one under house arrest. In ten of the cases, independent monitoring has failed to verify the location of the detainees.

Four additional cases reported on social networks have not yet been confirmed by this organization.

Criminalization via the Sovereignty and Cybercrimes Laws

The Mechanism informs that the 13 of the prisoners who have already been indicted are accused of allegedly violating the laws of Sovereignty and Cybercrimes that are part of the system of repressive laws that the Ortega regime approved in the National Assembly between October 2020 and February 2021.

This independent registry emphasizes that for now, at the request of most of the relatives of the 27 people imprisoned, that they will not give the list of names of the victims of this new wave of arrests. 

However, some relatives of people detained in recent weeks have publicly denounced the captures of their relatives, as is the case with political analyst and former diplomat Edgar Parrales, 79, who was arrested on November 22 and is currently in the cells of El Chipote, in Managua.

On Thursday morning, November 25, the arrest of Eveling Pinto, 62, captured on November 6 in her home in Managua, was also made public. She is a well-known human rights defender and a cancer survivor. Her relatives denounced on social networks that they have not been able to see her since her arrest and that they do not know the state of her health, which worries them because she suffers from hypertension and chronic renal failure.  

The Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) and the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy (ACJD) indicated in an interview with CONFIDENCIAL that among the people arrested in November and still imprisoned are 16 of their members.

Juan Diego Barberena, a lawyer and member of the UNAB’s Political Council, says that 10 members of the organization are imprisoned in police districts of Managua and in the jails of the departmental capitals.

Barberena affirms that the imprisoned members of the UNAB have not been allowed to receive visits from their relatives and lawyers despite having surpassed more than 48 hours of detention.

Absolute helplessness

Barberena points out that the prisoners are in a state of absolute defenselessness, since, after a flagrantly illegal detention and more than 48 hours since their arrest, motions of personal exhibition filed to safeguard their constitutional rights and their physical integrity are not accepted by a judge.

He indicates that five of the 10 imprisoned UNAB members have already been accused of allegedly “undermining the peace and spreading false news through communication technologies, in accordance with article 30 of the Cybercrimes Law.”

He charges that these accusations occurred outside the time frame established by Law, since preliminary hearings were held more than seven days after the arrests.

Barberena also mentioned that the relatives of the detainees have said that although they are not given access to visit, they are allowed to deliver food at the three mealtimes, even those in Managua, and are also allowed to deliver clothes and personal hygiene items.

Detention of ACJD Members

Dr. Asunción Moreno, a member of the Civic Alliance, also denounced that among those imprisoned in November are six of the leaders of that organization, warning that the Ortega regime has intensified the repression against the municipal and departmental leadership.

“Since November 6, one day before the electoral farce, the leadership of the Civic Alliance from the different departments and municipalities are being besieged, persecuted and, to date, we have six leaders of our alliance kidnapped or detained by Police authorities,” Moreno said in an interview on the program Esta Noche.

She noted that four of the imprisoned ACJD members’ homes were raided without a warrant.

The ACJD announced the names of three of its six imprisoned members on its social networks. They are Nidia Barbosa Castillo and Edder Muñoz Centeno from Masaya, and Armando Robles, from Morrito, Río San Juan. 

In addition, they told CONFIDENCIAL that none of the detainees have been able to receive visits from their families and lawyers, even though most have already been imprisoned for more than 10 days. The members of organizations clarified that the names of the other three incarcerated members have not been released at the request of the families. 

It is public knowledge that of the six imprisoned ACJD members, only Nidia Barbosa Castillo, arrested on November 6, has been accused of allegedly violating the Cybercrime Law.

This week the Civic Alliance announced that Barbosa is hospitalized in Masaya with problems of hypertension and heart disease, after being taken last Saturday to a preliminary hearing.

Moreno states that the organization and relatives are concerned about the physical integrity of those imprisoned because “we already know that the dictatorship has been practicing torture in the prisons, has been carrying out illegal and arbitrary detentions in a systematic way, and holding illegal trials where rights and protections are not guaranteed in these processes.”

Citizens for Freedom condemns persecution and arbitrary detentions

The Citizens for Freedom (CXL) party, which was stripped of its legal status by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) of the Ortega regime in August, has also denounced that since last October 30, there has been relentless persecution of its territorial leaders in the department of Río San Juan.

They charged that, during November the following members were arrested: Moisés Salinas, city councilor of CXL in El Almendro, Araldo Manzanarez, local leader of the party, Esteban Paniagua Espinoza and Candido Sanchez Lopez, treasurer and head of the political organization in San Carlos, respectively.

The three organizations have demanded the release of all political prisoners who, after the new arrests, already number more than 170 in the different prisons of the country.

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