The Daniel Ortega regime has stripped another 94 people of Nicaraguan nationality this Wednesday. Among those affected are the writers Sergio Ramírez, Cervantes Prize winner, and Gioconda Belli, both in exile; the Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the writer and feminist Sofía Montenegro, Bishop Silvio Báez, one of the most critical voices of the Church, and the activist Vilma Núñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (IACHR). The dispossession has been notified by the president of the Managua Court of Appeals, Ernesto Rodríguez, and according to the ruling on the people affected, they are charged with “treason” and are considered “fugitives from justice.” In addition to withdrawing their Nicaraguan nationality, the justice system under Ortega’s control orders that all properties in the name of those affected be seized. Among the people who lose their nationality is also the journalist Wilfredo Miranda, a contributor to EL PAÍS.
This decision comes a week after the regime ordered the expulsion from Nicaragua of 222 political prisoners, who were also stripped of their nationality. These people were transferred last Thursday morning in a plane chartered by the United States to a hotel on the outskirts of Washington, where the released received support from the State Department to start a process that allows them to achieve legal status in the country. Spain has also offered to give them their nationality, a decision that several of the detainees have accepted. Among the people released last week was former Sandinista guerrilla Dora María Téllez, Commander Two of the Nicaraguan revolution, who told this newspaper that “every day that I did not hang myself was a triumph over Ortega.”
Today’s decision affects religious, activists, politicians, intellectuals, journalists who follow their coverage of Nicaragua from abroad, mainly from Costa Rica, the epicenter of Nicaraguan exile, feminists and some of the most critical voices against the Ortega regime. “They are thieves, but God is going to give me back a better house than the one they are stealing,” said journalist Lucía Pineda Ubau, part of exile in Costa Rica. Ubau was arrested in December 2018 after the Police stormed and occupied the facilities of the television channel 100% Noticias, in Managua, and also arrested its director, Miguel Mora. “That house cost me a lot. I planted more than 100 saplings. I improved it with the inheritance my father left behind”, Ubau told journalists this afternoon. “I am still Nicaraguan and the dictatorship cannot take that away from me. We have been overwhelmed by them. What was stolen will have to be returned to all Nicaraguans, to these people who have had clear, firm and courageous positions”, the journalist stated. “I had already expected this since the television channel was stolen from us. Do you think they are going to silence us journalists in exile? They are crazy, they are desperate. They are in their last days”, said Ubau.
Among those affected by this Wednesday’s ruling is Arthur McFields, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), who last year denounced the arbitrariness of what he considers the “dictatorship” of Daniel Ortega and had advocated for the release of the regime’s political prisoners. In an appearance before the OAS Permanent Council, McFields Yescas said that in his country there is no freedom of the press, separation of powers, that there have been confiscations of universities and 130 civil society organizations have been cancelled. “The dictatorship has declared me a traitor to the country, has ordered the confiscation of assets, has disqualified me, but this means that we are fighting for Nicaragua to return to democracy. We are going to move on,” said the former diplomat. in a video posted on his Twitter profile.
Ortega’s decision to strip critical voices of their Nicaraguan nationality has become a new form of repression and intimidation. Since 2018, when massive anti-government protests broke out in the capital and other major cities of the country, the regime unleashed a fierce repression that began by breaking up the demonstrations, with the murder of more than 360 protesters, many of them university students, according to the Commission. Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). This was followed by the hunt against those who were seen as leaders of the mobilizations and later the holding of trials considered spurious against the dissidents. In addition, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have left the country due to political persecution and a deteriorating economy.
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