Washington D.C., June 30, 2022– National and international human rights organizations launched the #NicasLibresYa campaign, a joint initiative that seeks to make visible the situation of political prisoners in Nicaragua and demand the release of all prisoners. politicians.
The organizations that promote this campaign are: the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality), the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Never Again, the Autonomous Women’s Movement, the Legal Defense Unit (UDJ) and the Registry Unit (UDR).
Carlos Quesada, director of Race and Equality explained during the press conference that “Nicas Libres Ya is a campaign that aims to achieve the release of political prisoners through communication actions on digital platforms and greater advocacy so that get the State of Nicaragua to release them, as ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court, in the Provisional Measures granted, and under the recommendation of the OHCHR; the Human Rights Council, CDH; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Special Procedures of the United Nations”.
Quesada expressed that the campaign includes the visibility of each political prisoner as a unique being, in order to measure the impact that the arbitrary imprisonment that has been imposed on them has on their families and society, through profiles that are in the Web page. In addition, for the population to be part of the actions, participation initiatives will be included that will be rolled out progressively.
The presentation of the website was in charge of Tania Agosti, legal adviser of Race and Equality in Geneva who highlighted: “we want people to feel this campaign as theirs and that those who are suffering from arbitrary arrests know all the time that from outside we take them in our thoughts and hearts. She also added that the profiles will be added as families grant the necessary authorization. And as additional information, all the communiqués issued in favor of political prisoners from the organs of the Inter-American and Universal System can be found on the web.
Yubrank Suazo is transferred to the Penitentiary System
Dr. Vilma Núñez, President of Cenidh, referred to the actions promoted by the organizations promoting the campaign in defense of the freedom of prisoners for political reasons, among which she mentioned internal legal defense, the request for more than one hundreds of precautionary measures, the management of provisional measures and the complaints filed with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
“The organizations that are part of this campaign are aware of the innocence of political prisoners for this reason: obtaining their freedom is our priority, the most urgent thing is to empty the filthy prisons where the Ortega Murillo dictatorship continues to apply perverse methods since the deprivation of liberty and imprisonment, constitutes a ferocious mechanism of personal destruction and social paralysis,” said Núñez.
She also reported that this April 30 in the morning, the political prisoner Yubrank Suazo was transferred to the Jorge Navarro “La Modelo” Penitentiary System, without the authorities providing information to his relatives or defense attorney.
Suazo was recaptured by the Police of the Daniel Ortega regime on May 18, 2022, and has already been detained for more than 40 days. The first time he was in jail was in 2018 during the April protests.
Political prisoners sleep on the floor
Karen Lacayo, sister of political prisoner Edward Lacayo, who had to go into exile to protect himself, said that people detained in the Jorge Navarro “La Modelo” Penitentiary System are cold at night, hot during the day, suffer mistreatment and sleep. on the floor, sometimes wet.
“Some of them have sores (ulcers) on their bodies and receive physical and psychological abuse, as well as their relatives who visit them in the Penitentiary Center. In addition, she denounced that they are stealing the food that her mother brings her with so much sacrifice, who is an elderly lady, ”Lacayo denounced.
In addition, she mentioned that detainees are not allowed to receive any type of food and that they have even rationed their water or allowed them to go out in the sun. “All this,” said Lacayo, “they do it only because they are political prisoners.”
“This is a good fight”
On behalf of the political prisoners who are in the Judicial Assistance Directorate in Managua, Nicaraguan businesswoman Victoria Cárdenas, wife of political prisoner Juan Sebastián CHamorro, recalled that
Cárdenas referred to the words that Chamorro recorded before he was arrested when he called on Nicaraguans not to give up in the fight for freedom and justice in Nicaragua. “This is a good fight, for good causes,” Chamorro said shortly before being arrested.
“I invite everyone to raise their voices for all those voices that have been cruelly silenced. Let’s join the cry of Freedom. I call on the international community, the heads of state, the international human rights organizations, civil society, the business community, all people of good will to do everything necessary to ensure that what the The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ordered that they be released immediately,” he concluded.
Torture in prisons
Carlos Guadamuz Hernández, defender of the Nicaraguan Never Again Human Rights Collective, recounted the practices of torture that are still being recorded and are applied to prisoners in Nicaragua.
He mentioned that the first time these practices were known was on April 24, 2018, just six days after the demonstrations began that year8 and it was the same young people who had been detained who experienced first-hand their hair being shaved, They will remove their clothes and their belongings and send them barefoot to their homes from the Penitentiary System.
“Within the torture practices identified, we can mention: prolonged isolation, dry and wet suffocation, suspension torture characterized by hanging a person by their lower or upper extremities, sensory torture through which light or darkness has been used. to make a person lose track of time, violent nail removal, psychological violence characterized mainly by threats against family members, both to arrest them and to kill them, rape them or even remove them from their guardianship, lack of medical care, drinking water and food in good condition, among others”, mentioned Guadamuz.
“Repression has been patriarchal”
Ana Lucía Álvarez, sister of the political prisoner Tamara Dávila, identified that within the patterns of detentions there is special emphasis on attacks against women human rights defenders who are subjected to arbitrary detentions, sexual violence, threats, illegal searches of homes, defamation campaigns among others.
Álvarez reported that from January 2020 to May 2022, the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders has recorded 4,141 attacks, which represents an approximate average of 4.7 acts of violence per day.
“Another important aspect to highlight is the interrogations, about which it has been observed that these are used abusively to psychologically and emotionally affect detainees, also, that it is a practice that is exercised more frequently against women. In the case of those who are mothers, there are testimonies about the use of sons and daughters, as well as relatives, as a discourse to intimidate their opposition role and work in defense of human rights. This is the case of Tamara Dávila, who during interrogations has been called a “bad mother” for abandoning her daughter, seeking to question and blame her, “said Álvarez.
Respect the Mandela rules
From the Legal Defense Unit (UDJ), Guirlanda Suárez called for the State of Nicaragua to improve the conditions of detention of political prisoners until their release.
The more than 190 political prisoners are in different penitentiary centers: La Modelo, La Esperanza and the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, which does not provide conditions for long-term detention.
Suárez said that “the prison authorities not only violate the rights of political prisoners, but also since 2018, they maintain differential treatment between prisoners for political reasons and other inmates.”
Political prisoners are deprived of many more rights than freedom, said Suarez.
She added that “we reiterate our demand to the State of Nicaragua to release the political prisoners; that the Constitution, the law on the prison system and the execution of sentences be respected and that international human rights commitments ratified by Nicaragua be complied with, including the Convention against Torture, and the United Nations Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules)”.
The full conference can be viewed on Facebook.
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