The Daniel Ortega regime disqualified 14 political prisoners for life from holding public office.
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega disqualified for life from public office or popular election at least 14 political prisoners, including four Catholic priests and several leaders, as denounced this Tuesday by the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh).
“We have a list of more than 14 political prisoners to whom the same application has been made, with the aggravating circumstance that the judges, at the request of the prosecutors, without any formality, without having any power to change a letter of a sentence that is firm, they alter its content,” the organization said in a public statement.
The most recent cases were four Catholic priests, two seminarians and a cameraman from the diocese of Matagalpa, northern Nicaragua, who, in addition to having been sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes considered “treason”, were punished with disqualification. “perpetual of their citizen rights”, according to Cenidh, a critic of the Sandinista regime.
This NGO, which was outlawed by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship in the framework of the sociopolitical crisis that Nicaragua has been experiencing since April 2018, described the disqualification for life as “the greatest aberration, the latest violation of the intelligence of the and Nicaraguans and the international community”.
Cenidh described the disqualification for life as “the greatest aberration, the latest violation of the intelligence of Nicaraguans and the international community.” (EFE)
“For CENIDH, this is an affront to the law, to intelligence, to the international community and to international organizations for the protection of human rights that are constantly insisting on condemning violations of the guarantees of due process, to which prisoners are subject. policies in Nicaragua,” he noted.
Cenidh argued that the accessory penalties, which include disqualification from public office, “cannot last longer than the time established in the main penalty, therefore, these disqualifications would have to last the 10 years” that has been the sentence imposed. religious and opponents.
“We denounce before the world not only this aberration committed against the seven members of the diocese of Matagalpa, (but also that) this new repressive action has begun to be applied by various judges, at the request of prosecutors in previous cases, adding final sentences ”, he added.
The organization insisted on denouncing “this indiscriminate persecution that is the total destruction not only of the institutionality but of any vestige of legal security that remains in the country.”
The most recent cases were four Catholic priests, two seminarians and a cameraman from the diocese of Matagalpa, northern Nicaragua, who, in addition to having been sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes considered “treason”, were punished with disqualification. “perpetual of their citizen rights”. (Reuters)
“It is the annihilation of the political prisoners for whom we demand their immediate release,” he added.
For Cenidh, the disqualification for life from holding public office or popular election and suspension of political rights, “deepens the repression in Nicaragua.”
Nicaragua has been going through a sociopolitical crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Daniel Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, with their main contenders in prison or in exile.
(With information from EFE)
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