.This Tuesday morning the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime continued the release of their political prisoners that started on Monday, June 10, some now under their self-Amnesty Law imposed with a rubber stamp from the National Assembly on Saturday, June 8.
Nicaraguan-Costa Rican journalist Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora, owner of the cable television news, 100% Noticias, arrested last December for reporting on the protests against the government of Daniel Ortega, were among the political prisoners released this Tuesday morning.
It is unknown at this time if all the political prisoners were let go despite the headlines on social media. The Ortega government has until June 18 to do so, the 90-day deadline to guarantee the definitive release of all political prisoners, as agreed upon by the government in negotiations with the Civic Alliance, the OAS and the Vatican.
The release began in the early hours of Tuesday, the first at 5:00 am at the La Modelo and La Esperanza prisons. Several political prisoners were also released Monday afternoon.
The first Red Cross buses loaded with political prisoners left the La Modelo, with the released shouting “Viva Nicaragua Libre”, as they were taken to their homes.
Venezuelan lawyer and defender of human rights, Tamara Suju, was one of the first to demonstrate after the release of the political prisoners.
#ÚLTIMOMINUTO Los presos políticos ya se encuentran en libertad. Según constató LA PRENSA, algunos de ellos ya se encuentran con sus familias. En este video se aprecia a Medardo Mairena, Lucia Pineda, Irlanda Jeréz, entre otros ¡Viva Nicaragua Libre! ????????>> https://t.co/KzQ7NksY4u pic.twitter.com/e3eC5SNzte
— LA PRENSA Nicaragua (@laprensa) June 11, 2019
“I am happy for all of them, that they should never have been prisoners. I hold tight to the fight for Freedom. My respect to the people of Nicaragua!, ” wrote Suju through her Twitter account.
Victoria Obando, one of the political prisoners student leaders who was released said that the struggle for the democratization of Nicaragua should continue and that she is willing to return to prison for that cause.
The 28-year-old was arrested in August 2018 and accused of terrorism, homicide, kidnapping, and robbery with intimidation, among other crimes.
Obando assured that the physical blows were not what hurt her the most. “What has affected us most has not been the beatings or the mistreatment, but the death of our partner Eddy Montes, for whom we are demanding that the murderer be investigated and paid,” she said. Montes was assassinated on May 16 in a custody attack on political prisoners in La Modelo.
What’s ahead for Nicaragua after Ortega’s self-amnesty?
According to Confidencial.com.ni, “paradoxically, this law designed to deny, hide, and cover up, is illuminating the route out of the tunnel of the dictatorship by placing the demand for truth and justice that the Mothers of April have raised in the forefront of the national agenda.”
It is expected that after this amnesty, the demand for justice without impunity is inseparable from the demand for free elections. “Now, for the first time in our national history, the rejection of an amnesty can become part of a new national consensus.
“The self-amnesty is only the first warning that Ortega is already preparing himself thoroughly to “govern from below”, after the foreseeable electoral defeat of his party. It is urgent, therefore, that we start now to lay the foundations of democratic governance in a post-Ortega Nicaragua, and to agree on a minimum agenda of democratization with justice, that includes the creation of the International Commission to eradicate impunity and corruption,” wrote on Sunday, June 9, Carlos Chamorro, owner of Confidencial, self-exiled in Costa Rica.
You must be logged in to post a comment.