Amnesty International Tells the Gov. of Nicaragua to “Stop the Murders”

HAVANA TIMES – Amnesty International and human rights activist Bianca Jagger, denounced the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua for an attack today by “Sandinista mobs” against a university in the capital, and urged him to “stop the murders” in the country, reported dpa news.

Jagger arrived in Managua with the director of AI for the Americas, Mexico’s Erika Guevara-Rosas, to present a report from the agency on the crisis affecting Nicaragua in a capital hotel on Tuesday.

“We have witnessed the brutal attack of the repressive apparatus of the Ortega-Murillo regime against the students who are occupying in the UNI (National University of Engineering), and I call on the Government to stop the murders,” wrote Jagger, a Nicaraguan, on Twitter.

For her part, Guevara-Rosas said, in the same social network, that “we have documented live the armed attack of Sandinista mobs against young students” of the UNI. The complaint was accompanied with a video.

“Tomorrow we present from Managua the Report of @Amnistiaonline with @BiancaJagger on the violent repression of Ortega and his policy of terror against those who are demonstrating, mainly young students who are a source of inspiration and peaceful resistance,” added the AI official in another Tweet.

Both witnessed an armed attack on the UNI main campus, where a group of students opposed to the government had barricaded themselves. Shortly after, very close to there, another group of unidentified persons attacked the premises of “Nueva Radio Ya”, the leading governing party station.

The riots are part of a very serious political crisis that began in mid April with a student protest against a reform of Social Security, which affected thousands of workers and retirees with an increase in monthly payments.

The conflict multiplied quickly in Managua and other cities after the violent reaction of the Police and the Army. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS records at least 79 deaths, 868 injured and more than 430 detainees from April 18 to May 24.

Police attack two EFE News Agency Reporters

During the same attack witnessed by the AI representatives, riot police, back in the streets after several days in their barracks, attacked EFE photographer Jorge Torres and camerawoman Renne Lucia Ramos while they were covering the events.

When the police began to shoot pellets and rubber bullets against the protestors, the EFE reporters sought cover behind the tires of a parked car.  However when two police agents discovered them, they were uninterested in their press credentials and instead kicked and hit them.  The two were shot at with rubber bullets as they ran to a nearby gas station.