TODAY NICARAGUA (Confidencial) Between September 4 and 18, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo unleashed a new wave of persecution in Nicaragua against members of the Unión Democrática Renovadora (Unamos), formerly the Sandinista Renovating Movement (MRS), which has so far led to thirteen arrests and four arrest attempts in five departments of the country and in the Autonomous Region of the South Caribbean Coast (RACCS).
The Monitoreo Nacional Azul y Blanco detailed to CONFIDENCIAL that the thirteen arrests occurred in: Managua (5), South Caribbean (3), León (2), Chontales (1), Carazo (1) and Matagalpa (1). They rescued that one of the three people detained in the South Caribbean was released after 24 hours of arbitrary detention, so there are currently only 12 people detained, most of them in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote.
“Most of the people detained, especially those from Managua, we know that they are in El Chipote, but in the departments, we assume that they are in the municipal police stations, but we still do not have a confirmation. Although we know that there is a person who was detained in Chontales and was also transferred to El Chipote, so we assume that the others could eventually be taken there,” said one of the Monitoring members who requested anonymity.
He affirmed that in these 13 arrests illegal raids have been registered, in which a judicial order has not been presented and in which the police officers who execute them “have taken personal belongings”, most of them cell phones, computers, and tablets.
He specified that among the 12 people who are still detained there are: two adults over 63 years of age and the rest over 30 years of age. “The situation of this new group of detainees is worrying because several have chronic illnesses and some were beaten at the time of arrest and it is unknown if they received medical care or if they are receiving their treatment,” he said.
A “new repressive pattern” against relatives
The Monitoreo member told CONFIDENCIAL that they have identified “a new repressive pattern” in this wave of arrests against members of Unamos, which consists in that if the regime does not find the person they are looking to arrest, they take their relatives.
He explained that of the 12 people arrested, five are relatives of members of Unamos who were not found in their homes when the police came looking for them.
“It’s almost an order that if you don’t pay, your family pays. That is to say, they come to the houses, look for the leaders or members of Unamos and if they are not there, they take their children, wives, sons-in-law, brothers, whoever they find,” denounced the Monitoreo member.
Among the detained family members was Freddy Porras, brother of a Unamos activist, who was captured and beaten by the Police at his home in Jinotepe, Carazo, on September 15.
They also add the three relatives of the politically persecuted Javier Álvarez Zamora who denounced, according to a CONFIDENCIAL report, that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo kidnapped, between September 13 and 14, his wife Jeannine Horvilleur Cuadra, 63 years, his daughter Ana Carolina Álvarez Horvilleur, 43, both Nicaraguan-French nationals, and his son-in-law Félix Roiz Sotomayor, after they did not find him in his home.
Javier Álvarez highlighted, according to the report, that his three relatives “do not have to be captured” because “they have not committed any crime. I have not committed any crime either, I am not a criminal, I am not a dangerous person. I am not a dangerous element and this is for me an extraordinary level of inhumanity and repression because when they do not find me they take them detained to the cells of El Chipote”.
“In the past, when they have come to capture someone, when they (Police) have tried to capture someone, they come to the house, if they want they destroy it, they steal what they want, but they leave the relatives behind, so this is a new level for me. of repression, from which we were suffering before. That is to say, if we don’t catch you, your family is the one that is going to pay. This is unheard of, this has no name or comparison with any historical situation in this country, it is barbaric, so I denounce this barbarism to the world,” he added.
Four arrest attempts
Monitoreo includes, in these 15 consecutive days of persecution against the members of Unamos and their families, nine incidents of harassment in homes and threats of deprivation of liberty.
Among the threats of deprivation of liberty, they recorded that the Police went looking for four Unamos leaders with the intention of arresting them, according to the information they collected from people close to the family.
“The Police informed the relatives that they were looking for them to arrest them. Among these four cases: two from Managua, one from Granada and one from León, there was an incident in which the Police, not finding the person they were looking for, threatened to take a family member and he became unbalanced and had to receive care. medical”, denounced the member of the Monitoreo.
He added that for now most of the relatives have preferred not to disclose the names of these people arbitrarily detained by the regime because they hope that they will soon be released.
Article translated and adapted from Confidencial. Read the original here.
Article originally appeared on Today Nicaragua and is republished here with permission.
