Lesther Alemán

Freedom for Lesther to participate in national political life!

On July 5, 2021, the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua arbitrarily detained, without a court order and through an illegal search, 23-year-old Lesther Alemán, a communications student at the Central American University (UCA), who had positioned himself as student leader after the social outbreak of April 2018 and whose participation in the national dialogue in 2018 was highlighted since he demanded that Ortega leave power.

From prison, Alemán has already celebrated his first year deprived of freedom. He is now 24 years old, and the UCA extended him his Bachelor’s degree in Social Communication and the Magna Cum Laude recognition for his outstanding academic performance.

Lesther dreams of being president of Nicaragua. He could be free, preparing for this, but he is in a cell where he lives one day at a time and badly, in prolonged solitary confinement, does not have access to regular family visits, receives a poor diet, and also has a problem in one of his legs that prevent him from walking unassisted, he suffers from high blood pressure and migraines, conditions that are aggravated by poor diet and the regime’s refusal to provide him with adequate medical care.

Lésther Alemán has Provisional Measures granted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which order his immediate release, considering that it is an arbitrary detention and he suffers cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The Court has required the State to guarantee access to health services and medicines while he is deprived of liberty, but it has refused to comply with the calls.

The Public Ministry and the Judiciary, co-opted by the Ortega-Murillo regime, applied against him a legal framework to criminalize and repress dissents, Law 1060, a reform to the Criminal Procedure Code through which he was imposed 90 days of judicial detention, which led to incommunicado detention and forced disappearance, to carry out investigations, before presenting a formal accusation against him.

In a trial full of nullities, in which the guarantees of due process were not respected, Lesther was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the alleged commission of the crime of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity” and he was disqualified from holding public office during the same period.

Lesther Alemán, is innocent, he did not commit any crime, his conviction is the result of the concerted decision by the operators of the criminal justice system to punish him for daring to express his opinion and exercise his right to political participation in favor of democracy and the end of an authoritarian regime like the one that exists in Nicaragua.

Freedom for Lesther Aleman!

We demand to the Ortega-Murillo regime: Free Nicas Now!