Nicaragua opens the trials of political prisoners accused of “treason to the homeland”

The noose is tightening in Nicaragua around more than 170 political prisoners incarcerated between 2018 and 2021 by the regime of President Daniel Ortega. The latter announced the opening, from Tuesday 1er February, of a series of trials against these detainees, some of whom were allegedly tortured. Their loved ones are calling for a “dialogue”, hoping for release. But their fate has become a bargaining chip for the regime of the former Sandinista guerrilla, isolated on the international scene.

“These criminals and delinquents threaten peace and security,” accuses the press release published on Monday, January 31, by the public prosecutor. These trials are primarily aimed at the 41 detainees arrested between May and November 2021, before the presidential election of November 7, 2021, won by Mr. Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, his vice-president. Among them, seven opposition presidential candidates, but also feminist activists, human rights defenders, journalists, students and even big bosses and former diplomats.

Six trials are announced in the coming days, including that of the famous guerrilla of the Sandinista revolution of 1979, Dora Maria Tellez, one of the founders of the opposition movement Unamos, judged from February 3. All are accused of “treason to the fatherland”, “money laundering” or “cybercrimes”, charges based on several draconian laws passed at the end of 2020.

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“Some political prisoners will be found guilty, but others should be released in the futureanticipates the political scientist Oscar René Vargas, in exile in neighboring Costa Rica. Ortega keeps under the elbow the lever of a possible negotiation on their fate to release the international pressure. » The 41 people arrested in 2021 had joined behind bars more than 130 other opponents imprisoned following an unprecedented popular uprising which demanded, in April 2018, the departure of the presidential couple. At the time, the repression against demonstrators left 328 dead and more than 2,000 injured, pushing more than 100,000 Nicaraguans into exile.

Threats and abuse

The regime, accused of “crimes against humanity” by the United Nations human rights bodies, has already used the situation of prisoners as a political weapon in the past: in 2019, it released some about 600 before opening negotiations with the opposition. This dialogue was quickly closed. And more than a hundred remained behind bars.

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