NicasLibresYa calls for the release of people deprived of liberty for political reasons at Christmas

Managua, San Jose, Washington D.C. December 2, 2022.- Four Christmases have passed since, in 2018, the State of Nicaragua unleashed a massive persecution against Nicaraguans who took to the streets to demonstrate, claiming the lives of at least 355 people and arbitrarily detaining more than 1,800 people. , thus using lethal repression, impunity and political imprisonment as part of the repressive strategy.

The increase in repression and the Nicaraguan State’s ignorance of its international commitments, as well as the systematic violations of the human rights of Nicaraguans, has caused the number of people deprived of liberty for political reasons to increase and arbitrary arrests and harassment of families continues to be registered in the Central American country. To date, 235 people from this context remain in jail and 10 political prisoners since before 2018, according to figures released in September 2022 by the Mechanism for the recognition of political prisoners.

From the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality), the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), the Nicaragua Human Rights Collective Never +, the Autonomous Women’s Movement (MAM), the Legal Defense Unit (UDJ) and Registration Unit (UDR), the organizations that promote the #NicasLibres campaign, have already managed, during 2022, to make visible the situation of people deprived of liberty for political reasons in Nicaragua and that precautionary and provisional measures be granted, including their families .

To do this, we held a photographic exhibition in Lima, Peru, within the framework of the 52nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States and, in this outreach effort, we placed a billboard demanding their release on one of the busiest roads in the capital. peruvian

Also, given the refusal of the Ortega-Murillo regime to deny the family visits that people deprived of liberty for political reasons who are in “El Chipote” have by right, we demand daily that regular visits and communication with their families be allowed. After 85 days without a single visit, the people deprived of liberty in El Chipote received visits from their families.

The repression of the Ortega-Murillo regime is not limited to the illegal and unjust imprisonment of those who identify themselves as opponents, but also affects their families, not only through the constant siege of their homes, persecution, imprisonment, but also because they are subjected to abusive searches, which included sexual assaults before being able to visit the “El Chipote” prisons in Managua, humiliating them in exchange for being able to see their relatives. Likewise, in the Penitentiary Centers the searches are deep, differentiated and sometimes abusive.

However, the year ends with 235 people in prisons, including 26 women and 209 men suffering cruel, humiliating, inhuman and degrading treatment, without access to specialized medical care, with scant portions of food that do not meet basic nutritional requirements and with long periods of isolation, without authorizing visits.

They will not have the chance to hug their sons and daughters because they have been denied this right and others because they are in exile. Both girls and boys have suffered the impact of the separation due to these illegal detentions, their relatives have made their notes public, in which they describe the love they still have for them and in turn the fear of being forgotten or forgotten by their mother. or dad or having lost them forever.

Despite these harsh conditions in which political prisoners find themselves in Nicaragua, they and their families do not give up and continue to hope that they will soon be reunited with those who are serving unjust sentences. That strength and conviction that sustains them every day motivates us organizations to continue demanding their immediate release. To request whoever reads us today, to endorse this position and advocate without distinction for the freedom of each of the political prisoners.

Today we are launching the #ChristmasInFreedom campaign, an effort to remember that political prisoners should be at home with their families and that they should not be forgotten and forgotten by the context of celebrations and family gatherings that are customary on these dates.

We want to invite all people to remember in these celebrations that in Nicaragua 235 people will be alone in jails.

We will not cease to demand that they be released and that, while that release occurs, their personal integrity be respected and their conditions in prisons improved so that their lives are no longer in danger.

We will not forget them, we will not stop demanding their release and we will continue to insist that their human rights must be respected during the unjust imprisonment they are suffering.

#ChristmasInFreedom