Photo: JOSE LUSI MAGANA/AP PHOTO/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
More than 40 opponents serving sentences of up to 13 years in Nicaragua “they go hungry” and their health is in danger due to mistreatment and terrible prison conditions, they assured this Monday (02.13.2022) your families.
“Our relatives (prisoners) are going hungry and we again corroborate accelerated weight loss consistent with states of malnutrition, as is the case of (activist) Tamara Dávila, who we calculate already weighs less than 100 pounds (45kg)”, warned the families, in a statement read at a virtual press conference by Raity Larios.
Larios is the daughter of opposition sociologist Irving Larios, one of the 46 opponents who were detained in 2021 and confined mostly in the police cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance l (DAJ) of Managua, known as El Chipote.
Opposition figures, including seven former candidates for the Presidency, were arrested in the midst of the repression experienced the Central American country prior to the November elections of 2021, in which Daniel Ortega -of 46 years- achieved a fourth consecutive term since 2007.
The families spoke after a visit they made to those who are in prison between 28 and 30 April 2022, in which They affirm that they observed a “general deterioration in health”, which they attribute to a “systematic policy of torture aimed at breaking their bodies and minds”.
“The punishments are have become more frequent and range from emotional blackmail, threats to transfer them to smaller cells with worse conditions and discretionary rendition of parcels” of the food that their relatives bring them, depriving them of “medicines, drinks and even toilet paper”, they specified.
The group pointed out that six opponents they are held in small double-barred punishment cells and that those with illnesses do not receive adequate medical attention. For his part, Cristian Tinoco, daughter of the former vice-chancellor and Sandinista dissident, Víctor Hugo Tinoco, said that he found his father “pale, thinner” and that he is beginning to present “memory loss”. )
They claimed that “the isolation and incommunicado policy persists” towards incarcerated people, which consists of denying them phone calls, sending letters and not allowing them to communicate with each other. During prison visits, families are also prohibited from hugging or approaching them. Washington’s support. All those detained in the DAJ have been sentenced in the last three months to sentences of up to 13 years for undermining national integrity.
ama (afp, efe, 100% news)