How Ortega Has Silenced 105 Political Prisoners and Families
Using abductions, threats, and fear of mistreatment
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are holding student leaders, professors, opposition leaders, a journalist, and members of the Catholic Church in prison. Here’s why their family members don’t speak out.
HAVANA TIMES – Relatives of Nicaragua’s political prisoners are afraid to speak out. Doing so means risking still more their family member’s safety or their own, due to the constant threats of losing their freedom or of greater mistreatment for their loved ones. Fear has imposed silence over the Nicaraguan prisons where some 105 political prisoners remain, despite the release and banishment of 19 priests and lay Catholic leaders on January 13th.
The risk of being imprisoned themselves, “increase the level of fear among close relatives that are already facing an anguishing situation due to the detention of their loved ones,” warns the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in their December 2023 report. This group is the only remaining source of information in the country.
The report continues: “These coercive practices on the part of the prison authorities generates an atmosphere of forced silence and fear, making it even more difficult to access truth and justice for those imprisoned for political reasons.”
With the recent release of the 19 religious leaders – 14 of whom were already on the Mechanism’s list – the group now reports 105 confirmed political prisoners. Adding the 60 citizens who are under de facto house arrest, this means at least 165 people in Nicaragua are deprived of liberty.
The Mechanism warns that there could “easily” be more political prisoners, but that the repression has kept family members from denouncing the abuses, thus worsening the under-registry of detentions.
“After the release [and banishment] of the 17 priests and 2 seminarians, the feeling among the prisoners’ relatives is bittersweet. On the one hand, they’re happy, because one less person on that list is a joy to everyone. But, on the other hand, they also feel desperation and enormous worry, since they had hoped to see them all released together,” commented activist and released political prisoner Ivania Alvarez.
105 political prisoners, but 0 denunciations
Among the regime’s political prisoners are three young women who were student leaders: Adela Espinoza, Gabriela Morales, and Mayela Campos. There’s also student leader Jasson Salazar, vice president of the April 19th University Movement; journalist Victor Ticay; professor Freddy Quezada; and collaborators with the Catholic Church, like twice-imprisoned Olesia Muñoz from Niquinohomo. There are also young entrepreneurs, such as Anielka Garcia, relatives of those killed in the April 2018 protests such as Nelly Lopez, and other government opponents. Their stories remain completely anonymous because their relatives fear talking about their cases or denouncing any mistreatment they’re subjected to.
“There’s a feeling of impotence, anguish and enormous worry about the abduction and torture their family members are experiencing,” Alvarez expressed.
She added: “Silence aggravates the situation of the political prisoners, because they suffer a martyrdom that no one knows about. The families know but don’t talk, in order to avoid worsening the horrors their loved ones are suffering.”
In the face of the threats, Alvarez noted, the prisoners’ family members no longer denounce situations like a lack of medications, the poor food, the punishments and the transfers to maximum security cells.
The political prisoners have attempted to protest their poor treatment through hunger strikes, but their demands have been silenced with blows, transfers to maximum security cells, and prohibiting visits.
130 new political prisoners in less than a year
On February 9, 2023, the Ortega regime released and banished 222 political prisoners, many of whom had been in prison since 2019. These prisoners were flown to the United States on a journey financed by USAID, christened “Operation Nica Welcome.” However, this didn’t leave the Nicaraguan jails empty of political prisoners. At that time, 35 Nicaraguan political prisoners remained locked up, including ten who had been imprisoned since 2018.
Jonathan Snayder Lopez is the political prisoner from the April Rebellion who’s been in prison longest. He was detained on June 22, 2018, and as of January 23rd has spent 2,042 days in prison. Opposition leaders Fanor Alejandro Ramos, Jaime Enrique Navarrete, and Eliseo de Jesus Castro, all detained in 2019, are the other political prisoner who’ve remained locked up the longest. Eliseo Castro was hospitalized in 2021 for a stroke.
Each time a group of political prisoners is released, the regime wastes no time filling its cells with new prisoners of conscience. A series of police raids in April 2023, in the context of the fifth anniversary of the 2018 mass protests, centered on Catholic leaders and faithful parishioners. That action meant some thirty new political prisoners were tried and found guilty amid completely hermetic silence.
The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners denounced that the regime hasn’t slowed their sudden captures nor definitive detentions. At least 60 people are being held under de facto house arrest after being summarily taken to Managua courtrooms in May 2023 and accused of “undermining the country’s sovereignty” and “spreading fake news,” the regime’s most common blanket accusations. Another ten or so have been added to these, the only difference being that no charges have been levied against them. Nonetheless, they must come and sign in at their local police stations at regular intervals.
The most recent raid was in December 2023, when the dictatorship rounded up 18 religious leaders. These were released and banished to the Vatican on January 14th. Between November and December 2023, the Mechanism documented 43 arbitrary detentions. Of these detainees at least 13 were subsequently released at some moment.
“The rest of these people are added on to other cases that are in the process of analysis and verification. At the moment of publication, we’ve established at least 25,” the report indicates.