Dora María Tellez

The two dictatorships that Dora María Téllez has had to face

There is a milestone in the life of Dora María Téllez that is probably the best known throughout Nicaragua and many parts of the world: she participated in the assault on the National Palace on August 22, 1978 when she belonged to the ranks of the Sandinista Front. Commander Two, they called her.

But “La Dora María”, as her friends know her, was not only a guerrilla fighter, one of the many who fought within the ranks of the Sandinista Front to liberate Nicaragua from the Somoza regime, she also studied medicine for three years in León, She trained in war surgery in Cuba, was Minister of Health in the 1980s, and during the following administrations, she did conjunctural analysis of Nicaragua before the media.

The Ortega and Murillo regime arrested her on June 13, 2021, at the age of 66.

Téllez separated from the Sandinista Front due to internal discussions and because she did not agree with the direction the party was taking towards the enthronement of Daniel Ortega within the leadership and in 1995 she founded the Sandinista Renovating Movement (MRS) and presided over the party until 2007.

In 2008, just a year after Daniel Ortega returned to power, she decided to cancel the legal status of the MRS through the Supreme Electoral Council. After the outbreak of the protests in April 2018, the MRS, still without legal status, changed its name to UNAMOS to distance itself from Sandinismo once and for all.

Although Dora María no longer actively participated in politics, prior to the 2021 elections in which Ortega was re-elected for the fourth consecutive time with absolute control of all State powers, Ortega decided to order her arrest through an illegal and arbitrary raid and added his former party colleagues, including Dora María Téllez, to the list of political prisoners.

Judge Ángel JeanCarlos Fernández sentenced her for the crime of conspiracy to undermine national integrity; and he sentenced her to 8 years in prison and disqualification from holding public office.

Despite the fact that the Inter-American Court granted her provisional measures on November 4, 2021, ordering that the possibility of granting alternative measures to deprivation of liberty be immediately evaluated, the regime has decided to keep her confined, in isolation, and prevent her from communicating with other prisoners.

In an interview that Téllez gave to the magazine Domingo de La Prensa in 2017, she said that she wanted to know China, Tikal and Machu Pichu; She sows about five blocks of land and enjoys the sunrises while she waters her plants with the rainwater she collects.

Freedom for Dora María Téllez!

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