15 de noviembre 2022
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Eight days have passed since the sham municipal elections, in which Daniel Ortega claimed victory in all 153 municipal and mayoral races in Nicaragua. In that context, between November 1st and 8th, a total of 31 people were detained, and 21 remain in custody in various police station jails, according to the civic observatory Urnas Abiertas (Open Polls).
Because family members of the detainees fear for their loved ones’ safety, they prefer not to make public the names of their incarcerated family members. The two exceptions are opposition activist Karla Vega, who was detained on November 5, and former political prisoner Carlos Valle, whose daughter and also former political prisoner, Elsa Valle, confirmed that the police raided her home last Saturday and took away her father without any justification.
The arrests were violent and carried out without warrants or judicial orders, according to sources from opposition organizations. The Ortega regime has released ten of the 31 people recently arrested in the electoral context. "There are still a number of people detained within the municipalities who we hope will be released," said Ivania Álvarez, a researcher with Urnas Abiertas.
The detainees still in custody are being held in police station jails in Managua, Masaya, Río San Juan, Ocotal, Carazo and Chontales.
Charges have been brought against three detainees
So far it has been confirmed by sources from opposition organizations as well as the attorney Yonarqui Martínez, who is following the cases as a human rights defender, that the Ortega regime prosecutors have charged opposition members Karla Vega, originally from El Rosario, Carazo, Allan Sebastián Bermúdez, and Sandra del Carmen Acevedo Díaz with the alleged crimes of "conspiracy to undermine national sovereignty" and "propagation of fake news", crimes that have been used by the judicial branch to fabricate cases against opponents, according to legal experts and defenders.
Martínez confirmed that Vega appeared before a preliminary hearing on November 11. The initial hearing is scheduled for Monday, November 21.
"They kicked in the door and charged in violently. They pushed her [into their pickup truck]. There were about ten riot police. Her physical integrity and her life are in danger because from the moment they started dragging her out of the house they were beating her," a family member of Vega’s told CONFIDENCIAL about her arrest.
More political prisoners
Over the course of just eight days, the Ortega regime detained almost half as many people --31 arrests-- as the 70 detained during all of 2021, a year marked by an acute escalation of political violence and the imprisonment of civic, union, and student leaders as well as seven potential presidential candidates.
Álvarez explained that Urnas Abiertas maintains a network of local researchers throughout the country, which is how they have been able to document these recent detentions. However, they are concerned about the possibility of a similar situation to that of 2021, when several people were arrested in Rio San Juan just days before the sham presidential elections, when Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo appointed themselves to another term in power, without political competition. These detainees were never transferred to Managua, where the largest number of political prisoners are concentrated. Instead, they are still being held in the Cuisalá penitentiary in Chontales.
"It’s the same pattern of not telling family members the reasons for the detentions. Their loved ones were taken away violently, they were not given any explanation, and the detainees haven’t been arraigned nor have they been allowed visitors or counsel. We know that the authorities now have up to 90 days to file a case. Our great fear is that the same thing will happen here, that they will be held in their municipal or county jails because of the current extremely harmful laws," said Alvarez.
Another source from an opposition organization confirmed that the family members remain uninformed about the situation of their detained loved ones. The police have told them only that they are under investigation. The source says this new attack against citizens is part of the “pattern of repression used by the dictatorship to suppress political mobility during the electoral context".
Based on data from the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, CONFIDENCIAL confirmed that 2022 is the year with the most political prisoners in Nicaragua since the brutal wave of repression and massacres carried out by the Ortega regime against the April 2018 Rebellion.
Between January and September of this year, 59 new political prisoners were registered. If the Ortega regime files formal charges against all the recent detainees, the total so far this year would go up to 80 prisoners of conscience in 2022, ten more than in 2021. According to the Mechanism there are more than 220 political prisoners. Of these, 29 remain in isolation and incommunicado in the Auxiliary Judicial Complex (DAJ), El Chipote.
