Isolated, tortured and starving: this is how Daniel Ortega’s regime keeps the 36 opponents detained

Almost three months after the arrest of 36 opponents of Daniel Ortega’s regime, including seven presidential candidates for the November 7 elections, The dictatorship authorities allowed their relatives last week to visit them for 20 to 30 minutes in El Chipote prison.

Ana María Chamorro, sister of the presidential candidate Juan Sebastian Chamorro, arrested on June 8, reported that this he has lost about 11 kilos, he looks pale and haggard.

“The most difficult thing is the lack of information about what is going on outside. They interrogate him daily, 87 days of interrogation and psychological torture, they tell you things that are not true. That his wife will be imprisoned, that their property has been confiscated, ”Chamorro said.

He said that a permanently lit candle was placed in his brother’s cell, disorienting him overtime.

“My dad he spent two and a half months alone in a tiny cell, where the bed is made of concrete with a thin mattress, without a blanket for the cold, and to relieve himself there is a hole in the ground “said to AFP Cristian Tinoco, 69-year-old daughter of former Vice-Chancellor Victor Tinoco.

Vision of an extremely “thin, pale man (with) white hair, a long beard and slow movements” had a strong impact on Cristian, the oldest of four siblings who suffers from cancer with a difficult prognosis.

Ortega, 75, has been in power since 2007 and will run for a fourth consecutive term in November. He called the jailed opponents “criminals”, “agents of the Yankee empire” and “conspirators to overthrow his government”.

Nicaraguan regime accuses detainees of promote foreign interference in “attack on sovereignty”, under the protection of laws passed in December which qualify these actions as “treason”. The courts have initiated proceedings against most of the detainees.

ABSOLUTE INSULATION

Family members assure that detainees are in total isolation, without adequate food and medical care.

The feminist leader Tamara davila it is also isolated. They have him “in a cell with a locked door, no bars. It’s a closed cell, he doesn’t see anyone ”, A relative of the opposition woman said she preferred to reserve her identity.

Dávila, since his arrest on June 12, “He hasn’t spoken to anyone. There is no human interaction, suddenly he talks to a little bird that reaches its ceiling, he talks to spiders to flee the loneliness and silence “, said his relative.

HUNGER

Lesbia Alfaro told reporters that her son, the academic opponent Lesther Alemán, arrested on August 5, “can barely stand or walk”.

Lesther told his lawyer that his feet are numb and he has lost about 30 pounds because he is not eating enough, according to his mother.

German was an important figure in the protests of 2018, when, in the dialogue between the regime and social movements, he berated Ortega and his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo with a raised hand.

“Surrender to this people”, he asked then.

“I (what) is asking that the Red Cross help us, that it intervenes so that a doctor takes care of him and does not let him die of hunger ”, his mother pleaded.

THE UN REQUEST

The UN urged the Ortega regime on Monday that the persecution and repression in Nicaragua cease.

“It is imperative that the government re-guarantee the full enjoyment of civil and political rights for all Nicaraguans; that the persecutions against the opposition, the press and civil society cease “said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from Geneva, Michelle bachelet.

He also claimed Ortega to “immediately and unconditionally release more than 130 detainees” even since the demonstrations which erupted in April 2018, and that they killed more than 300 people.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Bachelet’s office They recently condemned “the criminalization, the lack of due process and the severe conditions of detention of those considered to be opponents in Nicaragua”.

As, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court) has requested to visit the country to “verify the situation of the detained persons”.

“If they don’t release the political prisoners, stop killing them slowly by denying them food, sleep, sun, books ”, Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli asserted.

(With information from AFP)

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