Central America
Amnesty International condemns Nicaragua’s unprecedented repression of dissent
On Tuesday, Amnesty International (AI) stated that no one in Nicaragua is safe from the “repressive model” imposed by the government of Daniel Ortega, which threatens human rights in an “unprecedented” manner.
“Nicaragua’s repression leaves no one safe,” said Ana Piquer, AI’s Americas director, in a statement.
“From indigenous leaders, journalists, human rights defenders, and anyone seen as a risk to the government’s policies, the authorities continue to solidify the climate of fear in which dissent is punished with imprisonment, exile, or disappearance,” she added.
Since the anti-government protests in 2018, which Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, consider an attempted coup promoted by the United States, hundreds of people have been “unjustly imprisoned” and many have been forced into exile, according to AI.
At least 300 people died in the protests, according to the United Nations.
The human rights organization urged Ortega’s government to “immediately halt all repressive practices,” ensure human rights, and end the “criminalization of dissent.”
Recently, the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más reported over 2,000 arbitrary arrests and at least 229 cases of torture of detainees since 2018.
Additionally, Amnesty labeled imprisoned Miskito indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera as a “prisoner of conscience” and demanded his release along with dozens of other detainees.
The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners in Nicaragua currently lists 45 people detained for political reasons in the country.
Since February 2023, Ortega’s government has stripped about 450 politicians, businessmen, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists, and religious figures of their Nicaraguan nationality after they were exiled or expelled from the country.
Amnesty demanded “an end to the practice of arbitrary deprivation of nationality, as well as the full restoration of the rights of those deprived of it,” and urged the international community not to remain “indifferent” to the situation in Nicaragua.
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla fighter who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and has been in power again since 2007, enacted a broad constitutional reform in November that stipulates that “traitors to the homeland” lose their Nicaraguan nationality, a charge leveled against most of the exiled individuals.
Central America
Venezuelan opposition leader to meet Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves on thursday
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia will meet with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves this Thursday, the Presidential Office of Costa Rica announced today.
“We will give a warm welcome to the person who won the July elections in Venezuela, and we continue to denounce electoral fraud,” President Chaves stated during his weekly press conference.
Meanwhile, Costa Rican Foreign Minister Arnoldo André explained that González Urrutia is visiting Costa Rica to “inform the president and provide details about the situation in Venezuela, the victory he achieved with over 7 million votes on July 28, and the electoral fraud committed by Nicolás Maduro’s regime, which fraudulently swore him in as president.”
González Urrutia is currently in Guatemala, having arrived from the Dominican Republic as part of a tour through several countries ahead of the controversial inauguration on January 10, during which the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro was sworn in as president by the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling party.
Central America
President Arévalo highlights anti-corruption and drug trafficking efforts in first year report
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León highlighted this Tuesday the progress made in the fight against corruption and drug trafficking as cornerstones of his first year at the helm of the Guatemalan government, during a session in Congress.
“We are in a process of transformation, but the commitment must be focused on eradicating the corruption that has oppressed us for so long,” said the president during the presentation of his first government report.
Arévalo de León urged lawmakers to “work together for structural change” in the country and thanked the president of the Legislative Body, Nery Ramos, for their joint efforts in the approval of various laws and the alliances formed during 2024.
The Guatemalan president highlighted as an achievement of his administration the denunciation of dozens of corruption structures embedded in state entities, such as fraud networks involving businessmen and former officials.
Central America
Honduras arrests former military leaders over 2009 killings
Former Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Honduras, General Romeo Vásquez, was arrested on Sunday as the alleged person responsible for the 2009 killings of two individuals by military personnel, just days after leading the coup against former President Manuel Zelaya.
Along with him, the Deputy Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Venancio Cervantes, and the former commander of the Joint Operations Command were also detained, according to the Secretary of State for Security (Interior), Gustavo Sánchez, on his social media account X.
“The three arrests were made moments ago by the Honduran Police in coordination with the Public Ministry in Tegucigalpa and La Paz (west),” Sánchez said.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office had issued an arrest warrant for the three ex-military officials “on charges of homicide and aggravated assault” against Obed Murillo and Alex Zavala, who were attacked by “members of the Armed Forces,” according to the Public Ministry.
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