The repression in nicaragua He has climbed one more step. This Wednesday, the Court of Appeals of Managua – an instance that does not have jurisdiction for such matters – stripped of their nationality 94 Nicaraguans accused of “treason against the homeland.” Most of them are in exile and did not even have access to a defense. The measure, previously imposed by the regime against 222 political prisoners on February 9, inaugurates a new stage of repression in the Central American country. Experts and analysts predict that any Nicaraguan could be declared stateless for the simple fact of criticizing the mandate of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, considered by the Sandinista caudillo as his “co-president”.
In addition, all the assets of those affected, including those that are not in their names, but that are part of companies or legal representatives, will be confiscated by the state. This includes bank accounts, even property.
Among the 94 people, there are at least 11 journalists, human rights defenders, activists, members of civil society, bloggers, political analysts and public officials. of non-governmental and non-profit organizations.
After the exile of 222 political prisoners to the US, this is the largest stripping of nationality that the Sandinista regime has done in what appears to be a new measure that they plan to apply to any critic who is outside the country.
“I am not going to stop being Nicaraguan, nor are they going to stop being gangsters”, the political scientist Enrique Saenz, one of the 94, told this medium. The expert sees the situation from a close-up. Exiled from his country, he said that the measure makes him feel more longing for everything he left behind. «I am Nicaraguan and nobody is going to take that away from me. I think every day about the nacatamal (a very typical Nicaraguan dish made from corn), the marimba, the syrup (another Nicaraguan dessert), the streets of Managua, the heat. How is a group of gangsters, because that’s what they are, going to take that away from you?” he emphasized.
Lucia Pineda Ubau, director of the 100% Noticias channel, confiscated in December 2018 by the regime, added that she is not entirely surprised by this measure, because since the “deportation” of political prisoners observed certain indications that the Ortega dictatorship would not stop there. “That will not take me away from being a journalist, or a Nicaraguan,” she said.
In the regime’s statement, received by surprise when the country had not even finished processing the release of prisoners of conscience, it also declared these people “fugitives from justice.”
“The 94 accused of being traitors to the Homeland are imposed the accessory penalties of absolute and special disqualification from holding public office, holding public office on behalf of or at the service of the State of Nicaragua, as well as holding positions of popular election and the loss of of their citizen rights in perpetuity respectively”, read the Sandinista magistrate Ernesto Rodriguez, president of the Court.
