23 de abril 2024
Cristina, Sofia, Mariana, Fatima, Francisca, and Pablo share one feeling: fear. They have had to learn to keep quiet and select what they post (or not) on social media because they want or need to remain in Nicaragua, despite the permanent political surveillance of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
For Cristina and Francisca the spies could be their neighbors, for Sofia, it could be her clients, for Mariana her university classmates, for Pablo his colleagues at work, while for Fatima it could be anyone on the street.
The six Nicaraguans agree that behind the appearance of normality that is lived in Nicaragua, six years after the April 2018 Rebellion, anyone can be watching them and self-censorship has increased in the country to avoid being the next victim of repression.
CONFIDENCIAL talked to these Nicaraguans about what their current life is like and what they have had to do to survive and resist in Nicaragua, where the dictatorship persecutes any citizen considered an opponent, or simply a dissident, where anyone who acts or does not commune with the dictatorship can end up as a political prisoner with fabricated crimes in a trial without the right to defense, be banished or be resigned to exile.
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.