The IACHR condemned “the intense suffocation of the exercise of civil and political liberties” in Nicaragua

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned this Wednesday against “intense suffocation“Civil and political liberties in Nicaragua, who faces wave of arrests of presidential candidates and other opposition leaders in view of the legislative elections of November 7.

“What we have identified as constant indignation in recent weeks has resulted in an intense asphyxiation in the exercise of civil and political liberties”, warned the Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression of the IACHR, Pedro José Vaca, during a public hearing of the Commission on the situation of political rights in the electoral context in Nicaragua.

The cow considered that “If there are years and if there are times when pluralism, diversity, controversy, the fact of having different points of view on what is happening in our environment, must shine in our societies , it is in electoral contexts.

Therefore, he denounced that In a “year that should be plural”, there are incarcerations, restrictions on freedoms and exiles.

The session, held virtually, takes place after Nicaraguan authorities have shut down in recent weeks Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro García and Miguel Mora, presidential candidates, as well as other opposition figures.

Nicaragua refused to participate in this hearing, as recalled by the President of the IACHR, Antonia Urrejola.

“No one imagined that when this hearing went into effect, we would find ourselves in the situation we are in now.“Admitted Urrejola, noting that the session was requested” before the current serious human rights crisis, “although he admitted that”a serious situation was brewing with regard to political rights in the electoral context of Nicaragua”.

The president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), Vilma Núñez, regretted that the country is going through “One of the worst human rights crises in decades” and he stressed that its effect on people “has been so devastating that no character can reveal it in all its dimensions.”

As a “living sample” of these “three years of terror”, he recalled that 125 people remain locked “unfairly” in prisons and demanded their immediate release.

The activist admitted that the persecution in her country “it is not only with the candidates and with the politicians who promote the possibility of elections“And admitted that as human rights defenders, they feel fear.

“Fear is a form of repression imposed on us by the dictatorship”, he regretted, even though he admitted that defeating him “is also a way of resisting”.

For her part, Arlette Serrano, a lawyer specializing in human rights in Nicaragua, asked the IACHR to ask the immediate end of the general repression against the Nicaraguan population, which demands respect for their rights.

Serrano warned of a systematic strategy to ban any form of demonstration and he considered that freedom of expression in this country “is totally restricted and that there is a climate of terror” which prevents the exercise of this right.

(With information from EFE)

KEEP READING: