Jaime Navarrete

Jaime Navarrete: deprived of his freedom even unable to read the Bible

Every Monday of each week, Margine Blandón sends a bag to the Tipitapa Penitentiary System that is full of basic products that cost her about 150 dollars. Inside it is her son, Jaime Navarrete, 36, who should receive them, but the family is not sure that he will receive all the products that his relatives bring him.

In the Penitentiary System known as “La Modelo”, the security guards do not deliver the groceries to Navarrete, who has been ill on several occasions due to the terrible conditions in which he is in, in prison.

The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo unfoundedly accused Navarrete of the death of Ariel Vivas, a protester who died as a victim of lethal violence during the so-called Cleanup Operation carried out by the regime in July 2018 as part of the repression against peaceful protesters.

Navarrete was initially sentenced to 22 years and nine months in prison without the authorities proving the crime and after almost a year in prison, he was released with the controversial Amnesty Law approved by the regime in early June 2019.

He was recaptured a month later on July 24, 2019 and the siege against him did not cease in the short time he was out of jail. When he was arrested for the second time, the Police raided his house in an operation that included raids and arrests of other people deprived of liberty for political reasons.

Executing a new pattern aimed at charging dissidence with common crimes, Judge Melvin Vargas sentenced him to 3 years and six months in prison for the alleged commission of the crime of possession.

His defense appealed and appealed, but the sentence was confirmed. The case was resolved in record time, in less than a year, when these procedures can take up to four years, as explained by Navarrete’s lawyers in 2021 when the resolution was issued.

Jaime is isolated in the maximum security sector of the SPN La Modelo, known as “La 300”, where he does not have access to water during the day, except to bathe and fill a bucket of water with which he must cover all his personal hygiene and consumption needs.

The entry of purified water by his family has been prevented. Prison conditions in “La 300” are precarious: the cells are 3.5 x 2.5 square meters and do not have sufficient ventilation or lighting.

The cruel and degrading treatment to which he has been subjected reached the point that in the Penitentiary System they took away the Bible and the slippers he used without giving further explanations.

In October 2021, his mother managed to visit him in prison. She traveled from the United States and when she arrived at the Penitentiary System they made her sign a document where she assured that he was in good health despite not being true.

On the contrary, she left worried because she found him with a cough, diarrhea and pressure problems, in addition to the fact that he had lost a lot of weight since he was detained.

All these conditions led the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to grant Jaime Navarrete precautionary measures on November 2, 2020, along with 40 other people deprived of their liberty for political reasons, although these were ignored by the State.

His mother says that, despite the constant torture, isolation and unjust incarceration, Navarrete still hopes to be free and reunite with his relatives.

Freedom for Jaime Navarrete!

We demand from the Ortega-Murillo regime: Free Nicas NOW!